The Way Back Home
by Ace Aduro
Summary: The world's most improbable five season, manga, AND game crossover AU. Seriously, if it's Digimon and you can think of it, it's probably here or meant to be at some point. Um, relationship drama and terrible battle scenes happen.
1. Breaking the Rules, the Ratios are Good

Hi all!

Er, there's no good reason why this is a mass crossover or an AU.

However, there's a decent reason why several characters are OOC, and that's because I haven't played _World_ or _World 2_ in years, never played _World 3_, _World DS_, _World DATS_, _World Dawn_ and _Dusk_, or the Wonder Swan Color games, barely watched the start of _Frontier_, have never seen any incarnations of _Savers/Data Squad_, and only just read the manga. And I couldn't even finish _Next_ because it hasn't all been scanlated.

If anything seems wordy, it probably is. Good old NaNoWriMo.

Um, sorry!

* * *

"You're sure it's her?" 

"_Definitely._"

"The last time you said 'definitely', it turned out to be some completely random Tamer who just had an uncanny resemblance to her, and she didn't have a drop of Folder blood in her."

"_This girl's been spotted with a Lopmon. Generally speaking, they don't just wander around in the wild waiting for someone to Tame them._"

He'd always thought that was just a stupid literary cliché, but his heart skipped a beat. Could this really be...?

"_The thing is,_" she spoke on, regardless, "_she apparently hasn't been seen in the Archipelago for a good six months._"

He clenched a fist. "Why are you only telling me this _now_?"

"_Jen, you _know_ the League doesn't like to cooperate on this sort of thing; they have that ridiculous notion that if someone wants to use Taming to disappear, they can._" She signed. Jenrya didn't particularly care why. "_It does mean we now know where she's _not"

For lack of alternatives, Jenrya gave his untouched siopao a dirty look. His silence must have said something, because she hurriedly followed up the disappointment. "_I've been working on a Digimon tracer, kind of like the ones Hypnos uses but on a much wider scale and targeted at certain types of Digimon. Terriermon and Lopmon _should_ have very similar DDNA, so if you could bring him into the office for me to take a sample, we _should_ be able to find Lopmon. And wherever Lopmon is..._"

"Shuichon can't be far behind." Jenrya completed. He put down the phone and glanced at Terriermon, only to have the phone beep at him. "Sorry, Donna, I've got another call coming through."

"_Sure._"

He switched phone lines. "Reika, again?"

"_Megumi, actually; sorry to disappoint,_" came the other technician's voice, sounding far too cheerful for someone on the graveyard shift. "_There's been an incident with a Wild One in Byakko, the boss is _furious_! 'gumi says it's a... Gorimon._"

A Gorimon? "What's it doing this far south? They're native to Folder!"

"Gorimon?" Terriermon guessed, looking up from his manjuu.

Jenrya blinked, covering the phone's mouthpiece. "Okay, that was just creepy."

"_Oh, you know, the usual, attacking government offices on K Road,_" Megumi replied. "_Frankly, I'm just glad it didn't attack in the day time, half the government would have been around and—_"

"Megumi." Jenrya interrupted her.

"_Yeah?_"

"I'm on my way." Jenrya hung up before she could talk any more, swapping back over to the other phone line. "Donna, something's come up, I've got to go."

"_I thought the Alpha team was on call tonight,_" Donna mused, "_didn't you only just get off work a couple of hours ago?_"

These days he didn't even bother asking how she knew this sort of thing. "So did I; I'm hoping we'll get paid overtime."

"_Good luck with the... Gorimon, is it?_"

This was getting kind of silly. "Yeah. Bye."

Terriermon was already waiting at the door with the car keys and Digital Security Guard ID. They didn't bother waiting for the old, rackety elevator, instead choosing to sprint down the twelve flights of stairs to the car park level of Jenrya's apartment building. Before gunning the ignition, Jenrya made sure to slap the priority lights and siren onto the top of his car. There probably wouldn't be too many drivers on the streets this time on a Sunday night, but it was best to make sure he'd have the right of way.

Being part of the Digital Security Guard gave Jenrya license to ignore red lights and break the speed limit several times over in an emergency, but the rest of the team was already there by the time Jenrya swung the car haphazardly into a diagonal park, hopefully far enough down Kushinada Road that Gorillamon's rampage wouldn't hit it.

"How good of you to join us," Hikaru deadpanned, forming an energy sphere.

Developing his own sphere around his hand, Masuken smirked at him. "You know, Jen, I was beginning to think you wouldn't... _come_."

Hikaru's sphere flared a little. "I heard that. Get your heads in the game, guys!"

Jenrya elected to ignore both remarks, for the time being. "Terriermon?"

The child launched painfully off his shoulder. "Right!" _Terriermon, digivolve to... Turuiemon!_"

Turuiemon leapt onto Gorimon's shoulder, throwing a Swift Secret Punch at the Wild One's ear to little effect. For the nth time, Jenrya wished his D-Arc would be upgraded to a D-Cyber already. The Digital Accidents Tactics Squad had been so pleased with Hikaru and Masuken's work with the experimental digivices that they'd promised to have one made for Jenrya too, but for some reason they were having trouble sourcing the materials. Even Masuken said he had the best energy control of any of them when he borrowed a D-Cyber for the hell of it (thanks, tai chi training, for teaching him about ki). It just didn't seem fair.

"Jen!" Masuken yelled. "_Move!_"

Jenrya glanced up to see what must have once been a window above his head. Before he could even think about moving, there was a sphere of energy enveloping him, and the shards of glass were sliding harmlessly to the ground.

"Thank me later," Masuken snapped, beckoning for the energy and sending it to Gin Ryuumon once the glass was clear.

"What are you just standing around for?" Hikaru demanded. "Are you _nuts_? You could have been _killed_!"

"Well, excuse _me_ if my digivice isn't energy compatible," muttered Jenrya, retreating to a relatively safe vantage point behind Masuken to watch the battle. "We need to get him into the street. The middle of the road, away from the buildings."

"I'm on it," growled Dorugamon. "Hey, big guy, you know what your mother said to me last night?"

Masuken rolled his eyes as Gorimon stalked Dorugamon out onto the median line of K Road. "Crude, but admittedly effective."

Another Swift Secret Punch swung wild, and Turuiemon landed heavily on the sidewalk, not quite stumbling. "Jen, I need the buildings to get up to him, you know I'm no good long range—"

Hikaru didn't even have to open his mouth to say anything, Dorugamon was already falling back from Gorimon to help out. "I'll give you a boost." (They'd tried flying together before, it didn't tend to work well – Turuiemon inevitably gave him a Gauntlet in the wing by accident.)

"On three!" called Turuiemon, starting to run. "One!"

"Two!"

Turuiemon bounded onto Dorugamon's outstretched claws. "Three!" Dorugamon drove his claws upwards, launching Turuiemon into the air. "_Gauntlet!_"

The attack got the Wild One in the face, making it stumble backwards. Turuiemon sailed over its shoulder to have Gin Ryuumon catch him.

"He's just playing with us!" Hikaru complained, then yawned. "Okay, it's _way_ too late for this. One adult level against three? It should be over by now!"

Gorimon, perhaps taking offence at this comment and realizing the humans were together, aimed his cannon for Masuken and Jenrya instead. "_Energy..._"

"Master!" yelled Gin Ryuumon.

"Jen!" Turuiemon added.

"_Cannon!_"

Masuken threw up an energy shield just in time, wincing as the attack connected with it. All of Gorimon's attacks were based on his gun.

That was it! Jenrya and Masuken shared a look, then glanced back at the digimon. "Aim for the gun arm!"

"I really wish you two would stop talking together like that," Hikaru muttered, "it's a little scary."

All the same, the digimon followed orders.

"_Battle Rod Break!_"

"_Power Metal!_"

"_Swift Secret Punch!_"

The three attacks, two of them powered up through the D-Cyber, connected, and Gorimon howled in pain and anger as his gun arm exploded into a pixel shower.

"We got him!" Turuiemon cheered.

"I don't suppose you could finish him off _before_ he goes on a rampage throughout the city?" suggested Jenrya.

"I'm on it. Close range for more force, and use your balls!" called Turuiemon. "Follow my lead!" Bounding from Gin Ryuumon's back, Turuiemon landed hard in the middle of Gorimon's chest. "_Gauntlet_, aaaaand a left-handed _Gauntlet!_"

Gin Ryuumon and Dorugamon had to wait another moment for their power boosts, but soon followed up Turuiemon's attack. With a final roar of outrage, Gorimon pixilated.

"Do you think they're in the market for a rabid Gorimon down south?" asked Hikaru, watching the swirling data with a thoughtful look. "I mean, imagine this thing in a gym, or at the Grand Prix..."

"It's probably diseased," objected Masuken.

"Duh, that's the whole point of letting it be reborn, genius, it gets reformatted," Hikaru pointed out. "How long have you been in this job again? Anyway, if it's not suited for Taming and you don't want it either, _I'll_ have it. Dorugamon, absorb it's da—"

Jenrya shook his head, patting Terriermon as he dedigivolved and settled on his head. "Just let it go."

Surprised, Hikaru stared at him for a moment, before flipping his D-Cyber open and hitting the speed dial for the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad damage report hotline. "Ryuuji Hikaru, self-declared leader of Digital Accidents Omega field team, Gorimon incident in Byakko on K Road..."

Masuken pulled off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt, grimacing as this only left a thin layer of dust on the lenses. Once he put them back on, he glanced up at Jenrya. "You're staring." Jenrya hadn't realized. "My place or yours?"

"Your house is closer," Jenrya replied. "D'you want a ride?"

Masuken glanced at Gin Ryuumon. "Well, we flew here..."

Dedigivolving, Ryuudamon bowed his head. "I do not have the strength. I'm sorry, Master."

"That's alright," Masuken replied, "it's been way too long a day. Yeah, Jen, we'll take that ride. Hikaru?"

Hikaru waved a hand at them, disconnecting his digivice from the phone network. "Yeah, yeah, you're dismissed, go home and do what you like. _Who_ you like, I should say?"

"Shut up," countered Jenrya, walking to the car. "Do _you_ need a ride?"

"I'll catch the train," said Hikaru. "I'm sure—" he yawned, "—I'm sure Dorumon can wake me up if I fall asleep and miss my sto— Dorumon?"

The child was asleep at his feet.

Masuken laughed, removing the siren and lights from Jenrya's car. "See you in a few days."

-

He was fifteen years old again, and he was almost all the way up Infinity Mountain, and he was _so tired_. They had ridden for five days at a gallop from Abilene (he felt bad about driving the horses so hard, but what could they do? Strikedramon and Stingmon weren't exactly the ideal shape for riding), they'd taken another five days to find their way through the caves of Death Valley, and they'd been hiking up Infinity without the horses for almost a week now. Frankly, he was amazed that Ken had kept going. He was only twelve years old, and the mountain was so steep.

_His_ castle was up ahead. It looked different from last time, when it was more of an orb. This time, it appeared to be entirely composed of crystal, and incrementally growing towers rose in what seemed to be a spiral towards the center. He had to admit, _he_ had a bit of a flair for architectural design.

"How can you _say_ that about him when he _killed_ my _brother_?" Ken demanded. "How can you say _anything_ good about him?"

Oops. He hadn't realized he'd said that out loud. "Well, I really think that—"

"_What_ do you think, Ryo?"

Ken was glaring at him with all of the glare he could muster at his age and stage of cuteness. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to mention this, but he _did_ ask... "I think Osamu would have said that too."

"About _him_?"

Monodramon shot a nervous look at Wormmon, who was hitching a ride on Ken's shoulder. Ryo pressed on, regardless. "Look, it's all mathematically precise, with the nice angles and that _beautiful_ spiral, and the ratios are good and—"

"The _ratios are good_?" repeated Ken, utterly incredulous.

"It's Osamu's kind of thing! He would have liked it!"

For a moment, Ken looked like he was seriously considering slapping him, but in the end he only stalked up to _his_ castle and opened the hideously ornate door. Or at least tried to, anyway. "It's locked..."

"Maybe it opens the other way?" suggested Monodramon.

Ken shook the door handle. It didn't budge. To be honest, Ryo was of the opinion that he was just a little bit too small to open the door. "Let me try."

The younger boy stepped back as Ryo went up to the door and laid a hand on the enormous door handle. He could have sworn the building _hummed_ at him – and it sounded _pleased_ – before the light pressure he was placing on the handle was enough to push it down gently and swing the door inwards.

When he looked up, the younger boy was staring at him. "How did you _do_ that?"

"Guess it likes me better," Ryo shrugged, uneasy with the whole humming thing.

It all flashed forward then, through the traps and puzzles _he_ had set up to delay them if not kill them (it was really getting kind of depressing getting used to slipping and falling on the frozen floors, and getting electrocuted, and burnt, and at one stage even poisoned – it took the four of them half the day to recover from _that_), through the digimon _he_ had sent out to get in their way if not kill them, through the seemingly endless hallways and stone stairs lit only by a tea light candle every five feet or so. Now they were in the heart of _his_ power, and Monodramon and Wormmon were evolving through Strike Dramon and Stingmon into Dino Beemon.

"Why did you kill him?" Ken was demanding. "He never did _anything_ to you! He didn't have a digivice!"

_He_ rolled his eyes. "No, but he was just as dangerous as if he'd had a digimon that could reach the ultimate stage. His tampering with _his_—" he gave a nod to Ryo, "—digivice was wrong and only corrupted your power. I mean, Dino Beemon, _really_? It's _unnatural_, your pathetic digimon shouldn't be able to digivolve together at all—"

"I'll give you 'unnatural'," snarled Ryo, spinning his D-Arc (as Osamu had dubbed it) in his hand. He jolted his wrist upwards, then swung the D-Arc forward to lash out with the blue whip of energy it emitted. Osamu hadn't really specified what the energy should manifest itself as, he'd just generically wired it as a self defense mechanism, and they'd all been surprised when it turned out to be a bullwhip. The whip wrapped around one of _his_ arms.

To his, Ken, Monodramon, and Wormmon's vast surprise, _he_ merely stared at the whip for a moment, then started to laugh. "I wouldn't do that if I were you..."

"And why the hell not?" Ryo demanded, tugging hard on the whip to force _his_ arm downwards.

_He_ took his bittersweet time before answering. "What would you say if I brought your precious friend back?"

Ryo's heart stopped for a moment. It was a good thing Ken was still around to answer for him. "And how do you plan to do that? That's impossible! He's_dead_, I remember waking up to see his body dumped in the middle of town thanks to you!"

Ryo only remembered that he was still hanging onto the whip when _he_ looked somewhat comical shrugging his other three arms. "I am a god—"

"Of your own sick delusions of grandeur," Monodramon muttered from within Dino Beemon.

The child went ignored by _him_. "This is _my_ realm, I can do as I please."

Still too stunned to speak, Ryo could only gape as _he_ reached behind him with one arm and almost tenderly pushed someone forward. Could that really be... "Osamu?" Ryo whispered, as hoarse as if he hadn't spoken in days.

His D-Arc clattered to the ground, the whip retracting into the device. The boy was the right height, had the right clothes on, had the right hair, everything right down to the glasses, but without those horrific wounds and burns he'd had on him the last time Ryo had seen him. And he was even giving him Osamu's trademark ironic wave.

Ryo didn't realize he was walking towards him until Dino Beemon suddenly got in his way. "Move."

"Don't do it, Ryo!" Dino Beemon told him, in both Monodramon and Wormmon's voices. "This isn't who you think it is!"

"Or even _what_," Ken added, staring. "I _think_ it's... I think it's a clone."

"What would _you_ know, Ken?" the boy who may or may not have been Osamu retorted, before returning his attentions to Ryo. "Ryo, come with me. There's no need to fight, he can give you everything you need..."

Ryo stopped, worried. "Sam, he hurt you..."

"That was just a fake, so you wouldn't come after me." Osamu informed him. "I joined him of my own free will."

"Without telling us?" Ryo asked softly. "After all that he's done?"

"We're working together now."

Ryo shook his head. "We thought you were _dead_, Sam..."

"He _is_ dead, Ryo, this is just a fake!" Dino Beemon yelled, but Ryo was deaf to all but Osamu.

"It's okay now, Ryo," Osamu replied, rather more gentle than he'd ever heard him before. "It's okay."

Ryo ran past Ken, past Dino Beemon, past _him_, intent on throwing his arms around Osamu—

"Ryo? Ryo, wake up! Ryo?"

Ryo blinked, blinking groggily in the light of the one gas lamp in their tent. "_What_, Takato? What is it?" He yawned. "It's not my turn on watch yet; I don't hear them stampeding; is there a Grizzmon stalking the herd or something?"

Takato's eyes were wide in the lamplight, and blinking as he shook his head. "No, it's just... Ryo, you were sleep talking, like, a _lot_, actually more like sleep yelling, something about Sam and 'he killed you!' and stuff like that, and you kept thrashing around in your sleep," he gave a demonstration, "and I was trying to wake you up and you were _crying_. Are you alright? You know, you don't have to do the tough stoic cowboy stiff upper lip thing around me, you can tell me if you're upset or anything..."

For a moment, Ryo simply stared at the younger boy, until Takato's face went pink and he looked away and picked up his pencil and sketchbook again. He wiped his eyes and cheeks while Takato was distracted, then collapsed boneless back into bed, idly tracing the buttons of his digivice.

He hadn't dreamed or even so much as thought about Sam, Ken, and _him_ for... it must have been at least a couple of years, if not maybe the last five. Why was he having nightmares about it now, and why was _he_ taunting him by waving around a clone of Osamu?

There was a dark shadow on the side of the tent, and Ryo only saw Takato jump by watching the younger boy's shadow. "Do you think it's—"

"You'll have to dedigivolve if you want to come inside," Ryo interrupted him, speaking to the shadow.

For a moment, there was only the sound of the wind and of Takato's pencil on the page, before his digimon partner spoke with _his_ voice. "You know I need to be in this form."

Ryo sighed. "Wait a minute, Cyb, I'll get dressed."

"You don't have to," Cyberdramon said almost hopefully, and Ryo gave a half-laugh as Takato raised an eyebrow, somewhat disturbed.

As soon as he stepped outside, Ryo regretted throwing on only a singlet, jeans, and his boots, shivering in the night time wind. Noticing the shivers, Cyberdramon moved closer to him, ostensibly to shelter him from the wind with his wings. "Thanks," said Ryo.

Cyberdramon shook his head. "I'm sorry."

Ryo glanced up at him, wishing for the nth time that he could see his eyes under that opaque mask. This wasn't the first time Cyberdramon had seemed to know what happened in his dreams and it probably wouldn't be the last. He'd come to terms with that a long time ago as something that came with being partners with _him_. All the same, an apology was a little unusual.

"Look, I just... There's something coming."

Instinctively, Ryo's hand moved up to cover something on his belt, but Cyberdramon shook his head again. "Not right now. Something bigger. I can _feel_ it. Can't you?"

"I hadn't thought about Ken for years, if that's what you mean," Ryo answered after a moment. "I wonder what he's doing now..."

Giving a little shrug, Cyberdramon almost tenderly stroked his arm with the blunt side of a claw. "I'll let you sleep now."

"Thanks. Good night, Milleniumon."

* * *

If you're a perv like me and want to read the uncut version (that is, the mature stuff isn't cut but the crap still is), there's a link to my Livejournal in my profile. 


	2. Five Seconds and Bang

Thanks to Starshone for allowing me to freeload Daisuke's entire uni sequence!

* * *

Economics was by far and away Daisuke's least favorite class. Maybe he should have taken the subject in high school to prepare himself better for now, but it just didn't hold him like physical ed did. If it weren't required for the business degree he was steadily chipping away at, he wouldn't be here at all. Sure, he _looked_ productive enough in class, but that was just because he was writing. It was a good thing they didn't take in your notes to mark like they did in elementary school, because his seemed to mostly be composed of _this is really boring_ and _there are only five thousand, two hundred and forty-seven seconds left to the bell_. 

So he wasn't overly disappointed when his cellphone suddenly came to life in his pocket in the middle of a lecture. The only thing was, how could he answer it without drawing his lecturer's attention...?

That exchange student who had been staying with Iori threw him a note from behind him, nicely folded into a model of paper plane he hadn't seen before. Daisuke almost didn't want to unfold it, but what could you do?

_Real subtle, there, Daisuke._

He shot Derek a glare, and then raised his hand. The lecturer stopped mid-word to raise an eyebrow at him to speak. "Ms. Anderson, may I please go to the bathroom?"

Ms. Anderson rolled her eyes. "Can't you just wait until the end of the lecture?"

Oh, _crap_. "But I really need to go _now_," Daisuke whined.

"Go," sighed Ms. Anderson, "before I change my mind."

Daisuke grinned at her, clambering over the other students in his row to the door. He threw Derek the quickest of glances on his way out, looking at him for enough time for the Wallonian to mouth, _your arse is vibrating_ at him. Before heading out of the door, he checked to see Ms. Anderson wasn't looking, then gave Derek the finger and ran out when he cracked up laughing.

It took him a little less than four minutes to make his way to the nearest bathroom, and luckily for him it was deserted.

Almost, anyway. There were some pretty odd sounds coming from the disabled stall...

Daisuke thumped on the door. "Geeze, guys, get a dorm or something, that's unhygienic!"

He looked away pointedly as two men – oh my _god_, he thought, are those the guys in my marketing class? – stumbled out of the stall, zipping up their flies and putting shirts back on. Then he finally took his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open to see who was calling. Kentarou, huh?

"Kentarou, this had better be good, I'm in the middle of an economics lecture!"

"_You hate that class,_" the man who should have been his roommate retorted. "_So I figured I'd get you out of it. Could you come to the dorm?_"

Daisuke sighed dramatically. "Would you stop it with the mad plans to seduce me, Kentarou, you know I don't swing that way—"

Kentarou had sounded so worried in his invitation that Daisuke felt justified in the jibe when he laughed. "_And neither do I, you dick. No, seriously, it's kind of an emergency._"

Oh, now he'd just gotten Daisuke curious. "Sure, I'm on my way."

"_Thanks,_" replied Kentarou, and the phone beeped in his ear, stating the obvious that he'd hung up. Daisuke was intrigued. What could possibly have Kentarou so worried that he'd call when he _knew_ Daisuke was in the middle of a lecture? He was usually the txt message type, and he usually had the sense to not immediately demand his presence, too.

More importantly, now that he thought about it, Daisuke was _screwed_. How the hell was he supposed to get out of class when he'd just said he was going for a bathroom break? His sister always said that he should_ think_ before opening his mouth (like she was one to talk), and for one of the first few (dozen) times, Daisuke was beginning to agree with her.

His sister! That was it! He ran the last few hallways to room 317 to burst into the room out of breath, and merely panted for a while until every pair of eyes in the room was on him. "Ms. Anderson... May I please be excused?" he demanded, very careful to put just the right note of panic into his voice. "There's a... There's a family emergency..." He practically counted Kentarou as part of his family anyway, so he wasn't really lying, right?

Ms. Anderson, who, depressingly if Daisuke had stopped to think about it, seemed a little too used to this sort of thing happening in her classes, not to mention not entirely surprised to have it coming from Daisuke, merely raised an eyebrow, as if to say, 'Go on, entertain me.'

Daisuke made an effort to look truly tragic. "My mom just called me on the way back." He paused for dramatic effect. "My sister's in the hospital."

Derek shot him a look that said, 'You're pulling this one out of your arse, aren't you?' He barged on before his story could lose a single ounce of its momentum. "She's on the police force in Zentrum, and she's in the Digital Security Guard, and she got hurt by—" What did that article on the latest digimon attack in Zentrum say? He'd sort of half-glanced at it over breakfast, before realizing he was fifteen minutes late for his train. There was an attack on the government buildings in Magasta, so surely there was no reason why there wouldn't be another one right after? "—by falling debris in a digimon attack, and—"

Murmurs of sympathy, "Daisuke, I'm so sorry," and even aggression at the Wild Ones rippled around the room. Daisuke was rather grateful that Ms. Anderson decided to study him for a moment instead of looking at Derek, who was mouthing _bull, bull, bull, you're making all this up_ at him. After what felt like another fifth or so of his life going by, the lecturer conceded. "Very well, you may go."

"Thank you so much, Ms. Anderson," Daisuke gushed, before deciding he was overdoing it, slamming the door, and running off campus for the halls of residence. He bypassed Dransfield House and Hillsdene, wishing for what must have been the fifteenth time this year alone that High Kinsella wasn't so, well, damn _high_. At the top of a hill, the hall he'd originally been allocated to was aptly named, but that didn't make it any less annoying. At least it was a decent work out, he wouldn't feel so unfit at basketball training later on.

It was kind of funny: Even after almost three and a half years of not living here, he still thought of the room as 'his'. With this thought in mind didn't bother to knock on the door and threw it open instead. "So, Kentarou, I'm here, where's the fire?"

Kentarou glanced up, alarmed, then visibly calmed down once he saw who it was. "Oh, good, it's just you. I was worried it would be the RA—"

"_Mokyuuu!_"

To Daisuke's vast surprise, a tiny... it must have been a Digimon? Daisuke didn't know how quite to describe it (a mouse with antennae-like ears, maybe?), but it jumped up on Kentarou's head. He wasn't sure what surprised him more, the creature or the almost smile on Kentarou's head. His intended roommate had never seemed to like animals, though he hadn't minded Chibimon.

"Awww, he's so cute!" Daisuke enthused, forgetting himself. The look on Kentarou's face said something along the lines of 'You're being absurd.' Daisuke cleared his throat. "I mean, uh. It's, um, not that bad-looking. Is it yours?"

"I don't know," Kentarou admitted, "I was hoping you could tell me. He was sitting on this."

The younger man held up something that was unmistakably a digivice. Daisuke stared at it for a moment, and then burst into applause. "Welcome to the team, dude!"

"What...?" asked Kentarou slowly. "But I thought... Well, it doesn't look like yours, so—"

Daisuke laughed. "You've just got the old school model; mine's an upgrade by a friend of mine. Actually, speaking of her..." He pulled out his phone again. "Do you have any more classes this afternoon?"

Confused, Kentarou shook his head. "No, why?"

"'cause we're going to my place," Daisuke grinned. "Hang on a sec." Now, which number had he set Miyako to on his speed dial? She'd insisted it should be a prime number, so that left one – no, that was always the emergency number by default – two, three, five, and seven. Oh, that was right, it was five. He hit the button. "Come on, Miyako, pick up..."

One ring. Two. His friend picked up on the fourth ring. "_Daisuke? Don't you have a lecture right now?_"

"I left," replied Daisuke flippantly, "there are some things in life more important than economics 101."

"_What are you talking abou—_"

"Are you at home?" he interrupted her.

"_Yes, but what does that have to do with you cutting class?_"

"I'm bringing a friend over," Daisuke informed her helpfully. "Stay there."

"_What?_"

"See you!"

He hung up the cellphone, sliding it back into his back pocket (alas, his front pockets were simply too small to be of use for anything bigger than a couple of coins). Kentarou was staring at him blankly. "Why are we going to your house?"

"'cause I have no idea what your digimon _is_, and if anyone will, Miyako will," he answered with a smile. "I don't suppose the little guy introduced himself when he first popped up?"

Once again, Kentarou shook his head. "All he says is 'mokyu' or 'kyu'."

"Maybe he's a Mokyumon or something?" Daisuke mused. "Ah well, it'll be on _someone's_ database. Come on, before my lecture gets out!"

Kentarou shot him an odd look as he hid a protesting whatever it was inside his backpack and the pair of them left High Kinsella. "What'd you tell Ms. Anderson?"

"Oh, I made up some crap about my sister Jun being in hospital," Daisuke breezed cheerfully. "She fell for it. I mean, Digital Accidents Tactics Squad, that's a pretty dangerous job, right? The only thing is, now everyone except Derek, who saw my ass vibrating, thinks I'm at her bedside in some random hospital out in Zentrum, so if anyone sees me, there goes my brilliant cover."

Incredulous, Kentarou laughed. "Oh, man, I'm never going to get over your amazing ability to make up bull on the spot."

"It's a talent," Daisuke replied modestly.

It was a five minute walk to the Rama station, but they still had to stand around waiting for the Locomon on the northeast route for another three. After that the Locomon ride lasted a slow fifteen minutes. It was normally only ten minutes long, but there was a delay two minutes out of Tatau when, of all things, there were leaves on the track. Daisuke really didn't understand Locomon sometimes.

One of the many, non-monetary benefits of living with Miyako was that unlike High Kinsella, Miyako's house (if you could call it just a house) was nowhere near the top of a hill, and was on blessedly, blissfully flat ground. It was only a couple of blocks away from the main Locomon station in Asuka, too, so it didn't take Daisuke and Kentarou too long to walk there.

"Miyako, Chibimon, I'm home!" Daisuke called, once he had managed to find the spare key (having forgotten his own in the sprint to the Locomon station) and open the door.

Kentarou sniggered. "You two act like an old married couple."

"Yeah, well, so does your _face_," Daisuke retorted weakly, knowing his retort made absolutely no sense at all. "Chibimon!"

The baby digimon bounded joyfully into his arms. "Daisuke, I'm so glad you're home! That show on TV is so confusing, what with the lesbians and the secret child and the religious protestors at the wedding and—'

"Whoa, slow down, dude!" Daisuke laughed, as Miyako appeared in the hallway with her laptop on her hip and Poromon on her shoulder. "Miyako, what did I tell you about letting him watch daytime TV? Surely you weren't too busy to get a _Gundam Wing_ DVD down from the shelf for him or something?"

"Actually, I _was_," Miyako returned ("What _with_," muttered Daisuke, "you're _retired_."), "and what did _I_ tell _you_ about wandering out in the middle of class for no good reason?"

"Yeah, thanks, _Mom_," retorted Daisuke. "There _is_ a good reason, actually, a very good reason, that being there was something I wanted to show you. Kentarou?"

A little stunned by the quick pace of this whole exchange, Kentarou gently put down his backpack and took the mysterious digimon out.

"Oh my god, it's so cute!" Miyako cooed shamelessly.

The digimon seemed a little too pleased with the attention he (Daisuke _thought_ it was a he) was getting. "Mokyu!"

"So do you know what it is?" Daisuke asked impatiently.

"It doesn't look too familiar," mused Miyako. "Poromon, Chibimon, have you ever seen or heard of this digimon before?"

The baby digimon shook their heads. "It's kind of weird-looking." Poromon announced.

"Mokyu!" said the digimon, indignant.

"Poromon, be nice," Miyako admonished. "Okay, I'll run it through the database. Hold still..."

She unclipped her D3 from her belt, pushed a button to set it to its Discover mode, and ran it over the digimon. "Kyu?" it inquired, curious.

Miyako laughed as the little digimon tried to poke at her digivice. "Na ah ah, hands off."

"Kyuuu," said the digimon, disappointed.

"So, what is that, exactly?" asked Kentarou, who looked a bit concerned. "Daisuke's always been a bit vague about it..."

"He would be," Chibimon answered helpfully, "he doesn't really understand it!" Annoyed, Daisuke pushed him off his shoulder onto the couch.

"It's called a D3," Miyako replied proudly, ignoring her roommate. "It's an upgraded version of the initial digivice—"

"Invented by this lovely lady here," Daisuke put in, before she could leave it out.

"Er, yeah," Miyako muttered, blushing slightly as Kentarou gaped at her, impressed. "It's not the latest and greatest model I've worked on, but I did make this one mostly on my own. Anyway..."

She set her laptop on the chrome digizoid coffee table (her first coffee table had been made of glass, as Poromon had the good sense to leave it alone, but then Daisuke had moved in and Chibimon had broken the table in less than a week), and plugged the digivice connector cord (it did have some fancy technological name Daisuke had heard once, unfortunately it had promptly gone straight back out the other ear) into her D3. Opening her database program, Miyako clicked a button to run the search engine. "I'm just going to run your digimon's data through my database. It's a joint effort between me, Professor Koushirou, and Professor Azure Piyotte with a bit of help from Gennai, so we've got practically every digimon known to mankind – and monkind, for that matter—" she laughed at her own joke, "—on the mainland catalogued. It's bound to be here."

"So, uh, what does the... D3 do?" Kentarou asked, just curious now.

Miyako launched into her usual lengthy explanation. Personally, Daisuke was of the opinion that she should have been a college lecturer. "The name D3 is derived from the three modes it has: Digital, Detect, and Discover. Digital is, admittedly, just a fancy name for the clock setting, which the original digivice has anyway, but I upgraded it a bit to include an alarm clock and automatic adjustment for daylight savings time. The Detect mode makes the digivice act like a tracking device, and unlike the original mode, which can only detect other digivices, this one can find digimentals too. Don't ask me what digimentals are, that'd take way too long to explain. Anyway, if I'd had my D3 in Detect mode when you guys were coming, I should have been able to tell when you were nearby."

"It's taking a while, isn't it?" interrupted Daisuke, having, as per usual, completely tuned out what he thought of as Miyako's 'computer geek dark mode' and focused on the laptop screen. "Usually it's like, you plug it in, click go, five seconds, and bang..."

"Yeah, that _is_ weird," Miyako agreed, her Trailmon of thought derailed. "Hey,_what_?"

The screen was flashing almost despondently, and displaying a message Daisuke had never even seen before: _No matches found._ Miyako stared blankly at her laptop, a little stunned. "You know, Koushirou had me program that message in as a 'just in case' thing, but I never actually thought it would ever come up..."

"She's so modest sometimes," Poromon stage whispered, getting a giggle out of Kentarou's digimon.

"Hold on, I'll run it through the Minami League database," Miyako murmured, "they might have some weird digimon in the Southern Archipelago we don't know about..."

Immediately Kentarou went on the defensive. "Are you calling my digimon weird?"

"You have access to the League files?" Daisuke demanded, distracted.

"No," sniffed Poromon.

Miyako must have chosen to ignore both Kentarou and Poromon's remarks, because she only answered Daisuke's question. "Not officially."

"Hacker," Daisuke smirked.

"Well, it's not _my_ fault the League leaves their network unsecured," Miyako retorted. "I mean, _honestly_, even Hypnos, uses their database from time to time, and it's a freaking government agency..."

Her laptop seemed more confused than ever, once again flashing, _No matches found._

Stunned, Miyako sat in silence for a while, before eventually blurting out, "Your digimon's an anomaly."

Kentarou frowned, looking down at his little mystery. Daisuke was of the opinion that Miyako really hadn't put that the best possible way. Man, Miyako could be so damn tactless sometimes. Thinking quickly, Daisuke tried to come up with a suitable distraction for him. "Hey, you know what?" Kentarou gave him a questioning look. Oops. Once again, Daisuke really hadn't thought this brilliant plan all the way through. Um... "It means you get to come up with your own name for your digimon!"

"I'd say Kyumon would be the logical name for him," said Poromon, "considering that's all he ever seems to say."

"_Mo_kyu," Kentarou's digimon protested.

"Oh, my apologies," Poromon retorted, rolling his eyes.

Despite this disruption, Daisuke was rather pleased when Kentarou managed a laugh, giving his digimon an unexpectedly fond look as it scrambled up and around his shoulders. "He kind of looks like..."

Absently, he scratched the digimon behind the ears, smiling when he let out a happy, "Kyuuuuu!"

"Bun." Kentarou concluded. "I'll name him Bun."

Daisuke blinked at him politely. "What are you on, man, and can I have some? The little guy doesn't look a _thing _like bread. Unless you've been eating some really weird food lately..."

Smiling, Kentarou shook his head. "It's... It's a personal thing."

"Awesome," replied Daisuke, unfazed, "what is it?"

Seemingly recovered from her database and her '1337 hacking skillz' (as Daisuke teased her about them) failing her for the first time in her life, Miyako smacked Daisuke on the back of his head, getting a faint, "Owww, 'yako!" for her efforts. "Dais, you're so tactless!"

"Look who's talking," Daisuke grumbled.

"Daisuke, you're so tactless that your _face_ is tactless."

Daisuke glared. "Yeah, your _mom's_ face is tactless!"

Poromon sighed. "Oh, no, not this again..."

Miyako gasped. "You did not just go there! Your mom's face is tactless in _bed_!"

"Your mom's face is tactless in bed _drinking coffee_!" Daisuke retorted.

"Do they do this often?" asked Kentarou, watching them.

"Your mom's face is tactless in bed drinking coffee _times infinity_!" Miyako returned.

Daisuke jumped up onto the coffee table, narrowly missing the laptop. "Your mom's face is tactless in bed drinking coffee times infinity _plus one_!"

"At least once every day," Chibimon replied.

"Damn you!" Miyako shrieked.

"I win!" Daisuke crowed.

Poromon made a feeble attempt at palming his face with one wing.

-

If Trailmon allowed passengers to stick parts of their body out the windows, and if Junpei was the suicidal type who would have actually done so simply because he could, all Junpei would have been able to see of Zentrum would have been a faint smudge of gray on the horizon. Yes, he'd left urban civilization behind several long miles ago, forsaking skyscrapers and offices for the coarse-looking grasses of the west that he wouldn't have believed were actually edible to cattle, if he hadn't seen a cow eating it for himself.

In some tiny, shadowed corner hidden away at the back of his mind, Junpei hated to admit it, but he was a little bit nervous about his temporary move to Westside. If the rumors floating around Zentrum were anything to go by, the few people of Westside were plagued by digimon attacks even more often than Zentrum was, and there wasn't even a Digital Security Guard out there to deal with them, so humans had to fend for themselves. (Of course, with his Spirits, Junpei figured he could cope with anything digital the west could throw at him.) He had only been twelve years old at the time, but even he had heard of that digimon up Infinity Mountain ten years ago who had either killed off or enslaved the vast majority of the local population of wild digimon and even killed a boy in Abilene who was only a couple of years older than him, before two boys and their partner digimon ran away from home and scaled Infinity Mountain to face off against the evil digimon and defeat him. And then there were all the stories about savage tribesmen coming down from the Northern Territories assigned to them and attacking the Westsiders. And of course there were the persistent complaints from the police that the law just didn't seem to apply west of the Hiona Hills, and that people tended to wander around the town with guns, shooting often and often at random.

On the other hand, there was always just a touch of inexplicable glamour associated with the west. The desolate environment and the constant gossip about wild digimon and equally wild Northerners lent themselves well to heroics, and this was only backed up by the region's real history with that digimon ten years ago. (What was its name again? Something to do with time, or years or something...) Considering how dangerous the job was, he was getting paid quite a bit for the Westside post, too, and heaven knew he'd been dying to leave the city for a while but just couldn't afford it. Maybe this post wouldn't be so bad.

"Dastur Station, kid," the Trailmon rumbled, interrupting his thoughts, "last stop in the west and the only stop west of the Hiona Hills."

Junpei pulled out the handle of his lone suitcase and wheeled it off the Trailmon, but gave the train digimon an affectionate pat on the engine before going anywhere. "Thanks, Angler."

Pleased with the affection, the Trailmon just about _purred_ at him. "Ah, don't mention it, kid. So I take it I won't be seeing you tomorrow like most of the vacationers I get out here?"

"Nah, I'm in for the long haul." Junpei replied. "I'd say a month at most."

Angler laughed. It sounded kind of odd coming from a train, especially considering how taciturn the Locomon in town tended to be. "Abilene's that way, it's impossible to get lost so don't be the first moron who does," he said, vaguely indicating the road with an antenna. "See you around, kid."

With that, Angler took off around the roundabout at the end of the Trailmon tracks and started on his way back to Zentrum, leaving Junpei standing alone on the platform. Before the Trailmon was out of sight, Junpei started walking. As tempting as it was to just Spirit Evolve and fly to town, he didn't really want to make a scene on his first day in Abilene. Who knows what they thought about digimon out here? And they'd_definitely_ think being able to _turn into_ a digimon was, at the very least, freakish. Who knew, if they found out about his power, they might shove him on the next Trailmon back Zentral and off to get cut up and experimented on. That kind of scenario just didn't even bear thinking about.

All the same, by the time he arrived at Abilene, he had almost come to regret his decision. He really wasn't cut out for long distance walking, though at least he'd taken his coworker Jeremy's advice and borrowed a pair of hiking shoes.

Abilene was, he supposed, a nice enough town – if you could even call it a town. The shabby little main drag of the Westside town would easily fit on a small residential street in any Eastend suburb, let alone Pihanga Station in Cora. After twenty-one years living in a concrete wilderness that called itself Zentrum, the wooden sidewalks and weatherboard buildings of Abilene provided something of a culture shock for Junpei. A convenience store, something called Acheter and apparently owned by a Shiratori Koichiro, was the first shop to come into his line of vision that he actually focused on. His eyes glossed over the blacksmith's (_Petit Mer, for all your shoeing needs!_), the doctor's (_Dr. A. Mackay, PhD, physician for humans and digimon alike – but take your horses somewhere else_), the bank (_Parcops, bank of the West_), and several other buildings that he thought were probably geared more towards the farmers and cowboys in the region before he saw the saloon Jeremy had recommended.

"Saloons are bars," Jeremy had intoned wisely (before Junpei had rolled his eyes, smacked his coworker upside the head, and said he'd seen his fair share of Western movies too, you dick). "Voler's a diner as well, and it's pretty much the only eating place out there. But that doesn't mean they screw around, their food's pretty damn good." He'd winked then. "And the girls are hot too."

Voler was housed in a refreshingly permanent-looking oasis of a building, in a town where half the buildings looked like a Wolfmon could huff and puff and blow them all down. Where every other structure was made of wood, Voler was built in brick, and the open and inviting glass doors hinted at modernity and coolness within, an escape from the Westside summer.

When Junpei walked into the saloon, the lady behind the bar who was twirling her startlingly pink hair (going brown at the roots) started. "Oh, you poor thing, you look so tired and dusty! Did you walk all the way here from Dastur?" Junpei nodded dumbly, eliciting a gasp from the girl. "Mari, get this poor man a drink!" Another girl he hadn't noticed scurried into action, and the pink-haired girl beamed. "Unless I'm wrong – and let me tell you, I'm not wrong about a lot of things – unless I'm wrong and you went to Biber before coming here—" again Junpei shook his head, "—this is your first drink in Abilene. Oh, so it is? First drink's on the house! I bet you're starving as well, I know they barely feed you on those Trailmon, and Dastur to Abilene isn't the world's easiest walk, especially not in the summer." All Junpei could do was nod in agreement. "Shuichon! Shuichon, into the kitchen with you, please!"

"She's at the studio," said a redheaded (and ridiculously attractive, thought Junpei) woman at the end of the bar, without lifting her eyes up from some cards she was studying intently.

"Again?" asked the girl the barkeep had called Mari, sliding a pint of – a sip from the glass told him it was beer – down the bar to him with an irritatingly familiar wink. "I swear, that pretty face of hers is wasted out here in the west, if that girl was in Zentrum—"

"If Shuichon was in Zentrum," the barkeep interrupted, as the redhead began to glare at Mari, "I'd be out of a _brilliant_ cook, especially 'cause Chichos has a contract at La Coucher when she's not out living her little cowgirl fantasy. Juri, can you go get her? And tell Ash to stop poaching my head chef while you're at it?"

"_Now_, Mimi?" protested Juri, looking up from her own hand of cards. "But I'm winning for once!"

"Not for long," the redhead muttered. She laid a card down on the bar in front of her. "Offense Plug-In A, attack percentage up. Yellow Offensive, Just A Little Metal Enhancement, and Bomb Dive, and I think just for kicks I'll play Digi-Duel as well."

"_Ruki!_"

Mimi (Junpei assumed that was her name) rolled her eyes. "Now, _really_, girls, what did I tell you about playing when there's even the slightest possibility of customers?"

"The only customer we've had all week until now is Wallace, and that's just because he can't cook," pointed out Juri.

The barkeep sighed. "That's not the point! Alright, if you two are too busy... Anna, could you?"

A blonde girl who looked remarkably sun burnt when compared to the other girls' tans (with the exception of Ruki, who was marginally less sun burnt) nodded and left the saloon. Looking back at Junpei (who was a little stunned by the entire conversation), Mimi put her smile back on, leaning on the bar. "So, what brings you to Abilene?"

"I'm an electrician," Junpei managed to get out at length, "I've been contracted to run power lines out here, and once that's all set up I might be asked to install phone lines too."

"Oh, _finally_," exclaimed Mimi, "we've been working with gas out here since..._forever_, and our gas stove just _kills_ my hair! Ally Mackay's Kunemon can generate enough electricity to jumpstart Ash's enlarger for a couple of hours, but it's nowhere near enough for the whole town!" Junpei was just beginning to wonder if Mimi always ended _all_ her sentences with exclamation points when she asked him another question. "Are you bringing electricity to the ranches and homesteads as well, or just the main town?"

"I'd have to stay a bit longer," Junpei replied, trying to work out how much more wire he'd need for that, "but that could probably be done, yeah."

She clapped her hands in delight. "Wonderful, we'll all have electricity and there's someone new in town! Okay, I imagine that means you're staying for a decent amount of time, so first things first: Do you have a digimon?"

Junpei chuckled. "Not exactly..."

Ruki glanced over at him. "What do you _mean_, 'not exactly'? Either you have a digimon or you don't."

Nervous, Junpei coughed slightly. "For the purposes of simplicity in this conversation, no. Don't ask. It's a long story."

Shooting a look at Ruki, Mimi smiled. "That's good; it means we won't have to send someone out to call Ryo into town."

"Ryo?" asked Junpei.

"A cowboy who fancies himself a bit of a horse breaker when he's bored," Ruki sniffed, though Junpei was interested (well, more like dismayed to be entirely honest) to note the faintest hint of a blush staining her cheeks.

Juri laughed. Her laugh was a pretty, melodious little figure that made Junpei smile. "He's also the town technology geek, more so than even Wallace who's, like, a genius or something. If someone comes to the west with a digimon and they're staying for a reasonable length of time, he'll upgrade your digivice to a D-Arc for you for free. Like this one." She unclipped something from her belt and held up her own digivice. It didn't look much like the D-Scanner, it had far more curves and circles, and the color scheme seemed to be built on white. To Junpei's eyes, the shape roughly resembled a female letter T going through puberty.

Running his fingers over his own digivice sitting in his pocket, Junpei smirked a bit. "Oh, yeah? What does this 'D-Arc' do, then?"

Ruki seemed bored, playing more cards as she recited an explanation of the D-Arc's functions. "All the usual stuff – clock, tracking device – upgraded, though, so it tracks other digimon as well as other digivices. Scanner, with the database built in, none of that 'plugging it into a computer' stuff they mess around with out east, and it works long distance too. You can use cards from the game to make your digimon stronger or faster or give it armor or different attacks or something, or if you're apart you can use it as a comm. device and see what they're seeing. If your digimon gets hurt you can use it to heal them, and if you're really on your own, it manifests your energy in the shape of a functional tool or something."

"What kind of tool?" asked Junpei, fascinated.

"It depends on the person," Ruki replied dismissively, "but it's usually something you can use for self defense, even if it's only at close range. Mine's a knife blade. Ryo's is a whip, which is, you know, more than a little bit disturbing. Doctor Ally's is a scalpel, sharper than her usual, too."

Junpei glanced at Juri, who had just finished clipping her D-Arc back onto her belt. "What's yours?"

She smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in it. "It doesn't matter any more."

Before Junpei could inquire further, a particularly young-looking girl, especially when in contrast to Anna, following, burst in. "Ash and I were doing the most _amazing_ shoot—"

"Tell it to the frying pan," retorted Mimi, "we have company!"

Running a hand through her short-cropped maroon hair, the girl glanced over at Junpei as if only really seeing him for the first time. "Hey, look, we have a n00b!"

"A _hungry_ n00b," Mimi corrected. "Kitchen!"


	3. Missing Person Report

Sorry that last chapter was obnoxiously long... This one's short and sweet to make up for it.

And hi to Mitarashi Anko and doomdragonknight!

* * *

"Hi, I'm just calling to check up on a missing person report—"

"_Oh, you're Midori, aren't you?_"

It was really kind of worrying when, of all organizations, the _police_ recognized your voice. And she hadn't even gotten this guy before. Midori nodded before remembering that the person on the other end of the line couldn't see her. "Yeah, it is. Are they briefing all new recruits on me now?" she added, trying and failing miserably to keep her tone light and carefree.

The File City police station receptionist chucked. "_In a manner of speaking, sort of. I'm very sorry, Ms. Shitou, but I don't even have to check the files to be able to tell you that there has been no new progress in the search for your brother. As you are well aware, Kurt hasn't been seen on any of the Islands for—_"

"Six and a half months to the day," Midori finished, "yeah, I know.

The receptionist's tone softened. Midori suspected he must have been new. "Ms, we handle dozens of reports just like your brother's every day. It is entirely possible that your brother isn't dead, it may well be that he just doesn't want to be found."

"I understand," replied Midori abruptly. "Good day."

She hung up the phone and locked up her digibeetle, then started walking to South Station. It was time to head up north.

-

It wasn't the too clean, overly hygienic smell of hospitals that got to Kim. Nor was it being surrounded by the sick and dying, either. No, what Kim hated most about visiting Zentrum General Hospital was that they didn't allow digimon inside. Sure, they made a few exceptions for people with just one small-ish digimon partner, but Kim was a Magami-accredited digimon Tamer. She had four.

"Stay out here, guys," she told her digimon. "And if anyone from the Security Guard approaches you, don't—"

"Don't kick their asses," Akatorimon sighed, "just show them our tags and explain we're waiting for our Tamer. Yeah, yeah, we've been through this speech before."

"You might have mentioned it once before," chimed in Wizardmon, a hint of humor in his voice.

"Once?" added Ogremon.

"Or twice?" Seadramon amended.

"A minute—" Akatorimon attempted.

Kim suspected Wizardmon was _grinning_ under that high collar. "Every time we've come here in the past two and a half years?"

As worried (paranoid, her digimon always corrected her) as Kim was, she couldn't help laughing. "I'll see you guys in a bit." She paused, thinking. "I'd ask for a group hug, but someone would probably think you were trying to kill me and call the Security Guard."

"Go," advised Wizardmon.

Kim gave the receptionist a bit of a wave as she walked into Zentrum General, flashing her visitor ID card. The thought that she came into the hospital so often as to warrant her own visitor ID card (as opposed to the temporary ones most people got when they come in and returned when they left) would be a little depressing if she ever stopped to think about it, but Kim tried to keep her mind off that sort of thing, focusing instead on the real reason she was always coming here.

That reason was sitting up in the bed in room 216 when she came in, and grinning weakly when he saw who his visitor was. "I saw a bit of the news; I didn't think you'd be coming."

Kim smiled, seating herself at his bedside. "Come on, Yuu, this is a regular thing whenever you're in here. The only thing that could stop me from making it here is Mephistomon," she said, referencing the legendary digimon whose coming was said to herald the end of the world.

Yuu laughed. "You and your Southern superstitions."

Smirking, Kim set up her digimon chess set (she'd brought it from File City) in a game of chess on Yuu's bed tray. "Please, the day Mephistomon comes you'll be wishing you'd listened to me, because even Gaomon won't be able to protect you."

"Bull," Gaomon said shortly.

"Play nicely, Gaomon," Yuu reminded him gently, moving a plastic Knight Chessmon. "So, Kim, what exactly happened at the Guard? The news was kind of vague about it, pretty much all I heard was 'oh my god, we got hacked, we're all doomed to death by digimon'."

"Yeah, they do tend to make a mountain out of a Golemon," Kim replied, shifting a Pawn Chessmon two squares forward. "It's a bit of a long and stupid story, but here goes: Last night after the Chuumon appearance in the Byakko Dome, someone hacked into the Hypnos tracing system and plugged in a virus that, as far as I could understand from Donna's techno babble, masks the presence of _all_ digimon, not just the registered and tagged ones. The technicians on duty at the time fully didn't notice, they were just like, 'oh, sweet, we're in for a quiet day for once', but then someone in Fado rang up the police and was like, 'you know, there's a Platinum Sukamon trashing my house, where the hell are you', and Hypnos was like, 'oh, shit, sorry, guys!' and had to send out the Alpha team. The hacker was a bit of a smart arse and signed off the virus 'Lucky Mouse', so they tried tracking the IP address, but it turns out they managed to piggyback to – get this – the Hypnos network, and used the IP address of the head of Hypnos, Yamaki Mitsuo's personal laptop."

In the middle of moving his own Pawn Chessmon, Yuu burst out laughing, but laughed a little too hard and started coughing instead.

"You alright?"

He nodded, still coughing, so she concluded her narrative.

"Yeah, so he's pretty pissed, and the Guard's been multitasking all day, trying to decode the virus _and_ figure out who the hacker was so they can pwn him."

"So does that mean they have to rely on eye witness reports of digimon while their system's down?" Yuu asked, recovering from his coughing fit.

Kim took a moment to consider her plans before moving a Bishop Chessmon to the side of the board. "No, Donna's too much of a freakin' Girl Scout and volunteered _her_ system. They've had to mess around with it a bit so it targets anything untagged instead of basing the search on specific DDNA, but it's working, and they're paying her what a field agent would consider overtime."

"So how come you're allowed outside?" he inquired, sliding a Pawn Chessmon forth. "I thought it was just the two of you, now that Ken—"

"It's okay, we've only got the two cases at the moment," Kim interrupted quickly, trying not to think about the missing third member of her and her sister's private investigation triad. "We've just managed to hire a new recruit, Katsura Kosaburo."

"Where have I heard that name before?" mused Yuu. "Did he use to work on the police force?"

"Yeah, apparently he trained as a police detective under your dad, so that's how you know him," she replied, taking out Yuu's Pawn Chessmon before he could seize her Bishop Chessmon. "But it seems he was after a career change, so he got a PI license and everything, passed the two hour exam on the laws and regulations of private investigation with flying colors. Hell, he did better on that test than I did," she muttered. It was a bit of a sore point with her, especially as she'd held the previous record for the highest (and near perfect) score on the exam. "He's all _over_confident, so we chucked him at the Ichijouji case. Who knows, he may have more luck with finding him than _we_ have."

"Yeah, no offense, Kim, but I've always thought you and Donna weren't quite impartial enough to do the job," Yuu said gently. "In the police force, they never assign people with personal connections to their cases. I mean, you and Ken were close, weren't you?"

Kim stared at the chess board, not seeing it. "It's your move."

"My apologies," Yuu murmured, picking up a Bishop Chessmon and moving it.

"Check," Kim replied, sliding her own Bishop Chessmon down the board.

Yuu deftly moved his Rook Chessmon and his King Chessmon around each other into the blank spaces in between them. "So how's the Lee case going?"

Grateful for the change of subject, Kim moved a Pawn Chessmon without really thinking about it. "Donna figured she could find the girl if she could find her digimon, so she was going to have Jenrya and Terriermon come in today to take a DDNA sample, but then the little Mouse came in."

Yuu moved his Bishop Chessmon. "Checkmate."

-

"Just trust me, Minomon. Don't you trust me? After all that we've been through together?"

The baby digimon stared dubiously at the dark ring Ken was holding up. "I _do_ trust you, Ken, but it just looks... uncomfortable, that's all."

Ken smiled. "I promise you, you won't feel a thing."


	4. This Isn't Entirely Legal, Is It

Long before Takato so much as registered it, Ryo picked out the black dot growing on the horizon as the approach of his digimon partner, and took out a card. "Speed percentage up... Card slash: High Speed Plug-In B."

"Huh?" asked Takato, confused.

Ryo clipped his D-Arc back onto his jeans. "He's coming," he assured the younger boy (in reality Takato was only almost three years younger than he was but Ryo just couldn't help but think of him as a boy), without even the shadow of a doubt so much as walking up to, let alone crossing his mind.

His confidence in Cyberdramon was not misplaced (as if it ever was). The perfect level digimon downright _zoomed_ into their company before the one hundred or so head of cattle entrusted to their care had time to so much as acknowledge his presence. It was a bit of a relief, really; this year's stock had finally been starting to get pretty used to Cyberdramon and his dramatic entrances, but still, all it took was one cow to set the whole herd off.

"Well?" Ryo prompted him.

Cyberdramon regarded them evenly for a moment before speaking. "There are _people_ around."

Takato brightened (to be entirely honest, Cyberdramon scared him more than a little), completely missing the emphasis on 'people'. "Oh, that's okay, 'kazu and Kenta are out on pliers, and Yamato and Taichi are on lines. They must have met."

There was something about the peculiar tilt to the corner of Cyberdramon's mouth – no, Ryo amended, maybe it was the way he was showing just the tip of a canine – that hinted vaguely at disdain for the younger boy. "_Lots_ of people. Not anyone from the ranch. They seem to be led by a girl."

"A girl?" Takato repeated, dumbfounded. Usually the only girl they saw out here was Rosa, on the cattle drive to Abilene.

"Hm, trespassers," Ryo mused.

It was a bright enough day that when Cyberdramon held a claw up to the sun, the reflection blinded both of them for a moment. "Shall I?"

"No, I'm sure that won't be necessary," Ryo replied quickly, "and if it is I'll let you be the first person—" Takato glanced at him oddly. "—Takato, you know what I mean – I'll let you be the first person to know. Were they carrying guns, were they on horseback or anything?"

The perfect level digimon shook his head. "They were on foot with a handful of digimon. Some of them were carrying spears or green... club... things or things that looked like axes but with feathers; a few of them had digivices, that pathetic little toy you had when first we met. The leader was carrying one I've never seen before," he added, in a whisper only Ryo could manage to pick up.

"Northerners," Takato said, his eyes shining crimson with excitement.

"What are they doing this far south?" Ryo asked rhetorically, giving no indication he'd heard Cyberdramon's digital observation. "Takato, let's go check it out, eh?"

"Definitely," Takato replied, beaming. "Do you think they'll be savages? Do you think they'll speak the same language as us? Do you think—"

Ryo rolled his eyes, looking at Cyberdramon. "Where are they?"

"By the lake," Cyberdramon returned.

Guiding his horse with his knees to turn in the general direction of said lake, Ryo gestured forward. "Lead the way."

"Hang on," interrupted Takato, as Cyberdramon began to fly, "we can't all three of us go, who's going to look after the herd?"

After taking a moment to consider this moral dilemna, Ryo looked pointedly at Cyberdramon, who must have tried to raise an eyebrow at him or something before saying, "Me?"

"I think it would be best if _we_ approach the Northerners," Ryo said carefully, "and I know you're more than capable of standing guard over a bunch of cows."

Cyberdramon sniffed, almost sounding offended. "Of course."

"Don't eat any, either," Ryo added as a precaution, before nudging his horse into a walk northeast. "We'll be seeing you."

"They don't taste the same," Cyberdramon called after them.

"He's weird," Takato remarked, once they were out of range of even Cyberdramon's keen ears.

"Look who's talking," Ryo replied with a smile.

"Hey!" protested Takato, laughing. Ryo laughed with him, and, unusually for Takato, they rode another couple of miles in silence.

"What do you think a good name for this digimon would be?" Takato asked after a while, holding up his sketchbook.

The way he managed to balance his sketchbook on the horn of his saddle well enough to draw when his horse was merely walking over fairly flat ground was a constant source of amazement for Ryo. He glanced over the doodle, which appeared to be a red fire-breathing dinosaur with triangles featuring heavily in its design. "Gee, I don't know, I Idolize Agumon-mon?"

"Oh, shut up," Takato retorted, grinning. "I think I'll call it... Guilmon."

"Weird name," the older man commented.

"Like _your_ digimon's any less weird."

"Believe me, you have_no_ idea," Ryo sighed.

The younger boy soon had to put his sketchbook away, however, as the lake Mizuno Gorou claimed as part of Shibumi Cattle Company's property was on the other side of the hill to where they'd left Cyberdramon with the cattle. It was a pretty enough lake, a decent place for a swim in the summer, the only water for miles around, and therefore an important watering hole for the Shibumi herd, but Cyberdramon was right, that amount of people at the water's edge _was_ odd. If the spears, clubs, and not quite axes Cyberdramon had mentioned weren't enough to peg them as Northerners, the dry grass (flax, Ryo vaguely remembered from the social studies lessons in the days when there was still a teacher in Abilene and he still went to school) skirts they were all wearing confirmed it. Takato blushed and averted his eyes when he realized that none of the women had their breasts covered, but Ryo was much more interested in the digimon he sensed before his D-Arc started flashing their presence, and in the new digivice the tribe's leader was supposedly carrying.

Their arrival could not have been any more conspicuous. As Ryo and Takato approached, muttering to their horses to stay calm, one of the men from the tribe gave a shot, and soon the men of the tribe were standing (well, more like half-squatting, if one was to describe it accurately) in a line in front of them, their backs straight and their legs a little more than shoulders' width apart. Takato squeaked (and quickly tried to pretend he had never so much as made a sound) when the tribesmen began to yell something in their Northern language at them, slapping their thighs and chests. Their widened eyes looked huge in their faces, and the amount of noise they were making seemed far greater than the amount of men actually present.

"I think it's a war dance," Ryo murmured, sounding far too calm (so Takato thought) about having come to this conclusion. Just to reassure himself, Takato put a hand on his gun holster, but as soon as they had finished, Ryo called out, "We mean you no harm."

They looked confused. Breaking formation, the men then formed a cluster around a blonde girl with a feathered cloak over her shoulders – and, Ryo was interested to pick out even at this distance, a strange-looking digivice clipped to the top of her skirt.

"Maybe they don't speak our language," Takato said quietly, sounding far less excited about this prospect now that they were seeing the Northerners in the flesh. "Do you think they'll attack us?"

Even if they _did_ speak the language, Ryo thought, 'harm' might have been too vague a word. He attempted to simplify things for them. "We," he gestured at himself and Takato, "will not hurt you." He then pointed at the strangers.

After a moment of consultation (judging from the worried sounds the tribesmen of both genders were making), the girl Cyberdramon had assumed was their leader stepped forward, her people instantly parting to make a clear path for her to approach the two men. "We are not hurting you either."

"You speak the same language as us," Ryo said in surprise.

The girl (she must have been a few years younger than Takato) nodded. "My mother is coming from – how are you saying – your Eastend. But she is going back to the winds very many summers ago. I am not having anyone to speak with your tongue. I am being – what is the word being – sorry that my speak is being so very bad."

"It's not _that_ bad," Takato said quickly, staring everywhere but at her cleavage (her cloak was almost, but not _quite_ enough to make her look respectable by the standards of the rest of Server).

She laughed. "You are being flattering to me." Sobering quickly, she introduced herself. "My iwi is being of Rangi, my maunga is being Mikage, my awa is being Hama. My whanau is being Orimoto, my – how are you saying – grandfather – is being Hiroyuki, my grandmother is being Tohru, my father is being Hayato, my mother is being Aminta, I am being Izumi. I am being chief of Rangi – um – what is the word you are using being – tribe."

"I'm honored," Ryo replied, sorting through the information quickly and figuring out how best to respond. "Um, my iwi is – um, tauiwi, I think you call outsiders? My maunga is Infinity Mountain, my awa is the Dark River. My whanau is Akiyama, my grandfather is—" he hesitated, then decided to name his mother's side of the family, "Ilya, my grandmother is Svetlana, my father is Nibori, my mother is Isidora, and I am Ryo."

"_Oh_," said Takato, understanding at last. "My tribe is whatever Ryo said, my – I'm sorry, I can't say that word – my mountain is Spiral Mountain, my river is the Loop. My family is Matsuda, my grandfather is Tomo, my grandmother is Akane, my father is Takehiro, my mother is Yoshie, I'm Takato."

Izumi gave a little nod. "I would be having my people say themselves, but it would be taking all the sun and I am knowing you southerners are not liking to wait and listen very long. You are getting off your hoiho," she gestured at their horses, "and coming to walk with me?'

It was pronounced like a request, but as much as he knew Takato would be loathe to dismount Ema, Ryo also knew it would be far too rude of them to refuse. With a pointed glance at the younger boy, he slid from the saddle and walked on Izumi's right side, leaving Takato to scramble off his horse to catch up with them. "Our horses?" Ryo asked, indicating them to make sure the Northern chief understood. "You aren't going to steal them?"

The leader of Rangi shook her head. "My people are taking them to the roto – sorry, how are you saying – the lake and having them drink, then to have them eating."

"That means the_horses_ are eating, not you guys eating the horses, right?" Takato checked.

Ryo ignored him. "Thank you."

"It is being nothing," Izumi replied, before calling out a series of commands to her tribe. Immediately a couple of men sprang into action, dropping their spears and taking Ema and Loshad by the reins with surprising ease. Izumi then turned back to Ryo. "I am not being accustomed to seeing tauiwi on turangawaewae. Are you being on – how are you saying – a holiday?"

"Funny story about that, actually," Takato attempted.

"The thing is," Ryo interrupted, "it's actually your people who are on our land. This land is not part of the Northern Territories. You and your iwi are in what we call Westside."

Izumi bowed her head somewhat. "I am not knowing. Your people are expecting the tangata whenua to be knowing where all their not seen lines are lying. Although I _am_ thinking it is being too warm here for this time of the moon."

Ryo nodded. "I hate to tell you this, but your iwi is trespassing." The chief looked rather blank, so Ryo explained further. "This land is owned by a man named Mizuno Gorou, and he doesn't allow strangers on his land."

"How is a man owning the earth?" Izumi mused. "If anything, Rangi is owning us."

She must have meant the god of the earth, Ryo guessed. "That may be so," he replied, "but Mizuno would have us kill you for being on his land."

Her eyes flashed angrily. "We are not being ready to be going back to the winds. If you are trying to kill us, I will be fighting, Rangi will be fighting, the digimon will be fighting."

"Oh, believe me, we'd all much rather it didn't come to that," Ryo said quickly.

As quickly as her anger suddenly flared up, it seemed it was blown away by the wind. "We are meaning to be staying here in Tahiroto."

"Tahiroto?" Takato repeated blankly.

"It is being what we are naming this land," Izumi informed him. "It is meaning one lake. We are not seeing any more – how are you saying – water."

"Ah," said Takato, enlightened.

"It is one of the precious few static sources of water in Westside," Ryo admitted. "Izumi, how much water would Rangi use?"

Her brow furrowed in thought. "We are using enough for our people to live, but we are leaving many for the... I am not knowing the name." She lifted her hands to either side of her head. "Moo!"

"Cows," Ryo told her.

She nodded. "Are the... kaus being owned by your Mizuno also?"

"Yeah, we're in charge of looking after most of them," Ryo replied. "I'll tell you what, Izumi, we'll let you stay here." Takato sent him a shocked and questioning look which he ignored. "We simply won't tell Mizuno you and your people are on his land."

"You are wanting something from me," she said, frowning at him with suspicion painting her pretty features.

"Oh, you caught me," Ryo smiled. "I was wondering if I could take a look at that digivice of yours, actually."

"Digivice?" Izumi repeated, confused.

"That thing." Ryo pointed at the device on her skirt. "I've never seen one like it before."

The Northern chief smiled, handing him her digivice. "I am being given this by a girl who is coming from Eastend. She is naming it D-Scanner."

"Interesting," Ryo murmured, turning the digivice over and examining it close up.

Takato sighed. "You are such a nerd."

"So where's your digimon," Ryo asked, choosing to ignore this remark, "I didn't really think it was the Gabumon and the Gizamon just didn't seem your type."

She laughed, but sounded rather uncomfortable. "Actually... I am being digimon. The D-Scanner is helping me to focus my spirit."

"_What?_" Ryo and Takato demanded.

-

Jenrya yawned as he trimmed Terriermon's claws. "Thanks for helping out during the whole Lucky Mouse mess. I'm glad the attacks have started to slow down after the tracer got fixed."

"I'm kind of worried, actually," Donna replied, collecting the clippings in a small zip lock plastic bag. "Either the tracer's still stuffed up—"

"It's all back to the original programming," Jenrya objected.

Donna ignored this interruption. "—or it must be a calm before the storm sort of thing."

Terriermon snorted. "You're almost as optimistic as Ryuudamon is."

"Thanks," Donna replied wryly. "Seriously, though, doesn't it worry you at all?"

"Momentai," answered Terriermon. "It's a bit of a break. We're not getting dragged out every fifteen minutes when we're on call. I'm happy. Heck, I feel we've _earned_ this."

"I concur," Jenrya agreed, putting the nail file away. "Great minds think alike."

Stretching, Terriermon flexed his paws. "Oh, that feels better. Any longer and I would've needed a scratching post like a Tailmon, or a cat."

"That should be enough to get your DDNA," Donna smiled, "though I wonder if I should have gotten it from you at your adult level, considering Turuiemon's usually a digivolution of Lopmon..."

The child groaned. "I am _so_ not in the mood to digivolve."

"Fair enough," Donna acknowledged. "It shouldn't take me more than a few days to track down Lopmon with this, once I code it into the scanner."

"What do you use, anyway?" Jenrya inquired. "I've only seen your computers around, it doesn't look like you have any of the generators or satellite dishes that Hypnos works with."

The private investigator looked at him sideways. "Believe me, you really don't want to know."

As he stood and waited for Terriermon to clamber onto his shoulder, Jenrya rolled his eyes. "This isn't entirely legal, is it."

He didn't even need a question mark, he was that confident – and correct – in the answer. Donna grinned. "No, not really. You're going to be a good little Digital Accidents boy and turn me in, now, aren't you?"

The Digital Accidents Tactics Squad agent shook his head. "You're helping me find Shuichon. That's a good enough defense in my eyes."


	5. It Isn't Cheap to Call the Mainland

Server regulations in Zentrum and Eastend in particular (the Southern Archipelago was a fair bit slacker on this, but then the Southern Archipelago was a fair bit slacker on everything) required fairly domesticated digimon – that was, digimon seen by the law as 'belonging to' a human being – to be either collared or tagged somehow, as not only a way of telling them apart from the Wild Ones, but also as a means of identification so that the 'owner' could be arrested if it all went horribly wrong. (Not that it often went horribly wrong, but it wasn't a risk the mainland police, especially that overzealous lot over in Zentrum, was willing to take.) For her first two and a half years at Uzume College, Hikari simply hadn't bothered collaring Tailmon, trusting the adult level would be smart enough to stay out of sight of police or any suspicious-looking people. Besides, all the neighbors knew who she was, and that Tailmon only attacked if Hikari was in danger.

But then Hikari's first training post had taken her to Aharia Academy over in Asuka, and for the sake of convenience, she'd taken one of the teacher's apartments at the boarding school. (Her closest friend on the school staff, a fifth grade teacher named Asanuma Nami, had informed her that she was insane for moving in.) That of course meant that for the first time in her time with Hikari, Tailmon had to wear a collar. Tailmon was of the opinion that the collar was disgraceful (never mind itchy), so a visit to Miyako's provided the perfect opportunity for Hikari to remove the offending item for once.

"So, Miyako, what have you been working on lately?" Hikari asked, putting her feet up on her best friend's chrome digizoid coffee table (a piece of furniture she'd always seen as a bit extravagant, but entirely warranted considering Miyako's roommate).

"Well," said Miyako, coming back into her living room with her tea set delicately balanced on one hand ("You're going to drop that and it's going to spill," announced Poromon, ever the pessimist), "Kamon Kentarou, that guy Daisuke was going to live with at High Kinsella if it wasn't for the whole 'no pets and that includes digimon' thing, it seems he got a visit from the digital stork or whatever as well, because a couple of weeks ago Daisuke dragged him in here with a digimon of his own."

"Really?" smiled Hikari. "That's so cool! What kind of digimon is it?"

"I have no idea," admitted Miyako, slumping down in defeat. Setting the tea set down, she offered Hikari a cup. "It wasn't in the database, the Magami League doesn't have anything like it catalogued, and even Professor Piyotte and Gennai have never heard of it."

"That _is_ weird," Hikari remarked. "What flavor is it?"

Miyako stared. "What?"

"The tea," Hikari sighed.

"Oh, right, I thought you were talking about the digimon, I was kind of worried," the older girl chuckled. "Black, Second Flush Darjeeling. I'm getting kind of addicted. Anyway, to answer your original question, I've spent the last week and a half trying to figure out what the heck that digimon _is_ so I can catalogue it, because none of us can agree on what family or stage of evolution it is, and it hasn't really demonstrated any attacks or anything. Kentarou doesn't seem to really care about all that, he's just happy to play with Bun and take him on walks around the campus."

"Bun?" Hikari repeated, sipping her tea. Then she grimaced and dumped in half the pot of sugar.

"It's the name Kentarou came up with for the little guy," Miyako replied, serving herself a piece of shortbread. "In Daisuke's words, what is he on and can I have some?"

Hikari laughed. "Where_is_ Daisuke, anyway?"

Miyako grimaced. "Still in bed. He went out with Kentarou and Derek and the rest of 'the boys' last night; he didn't get back until like half past three in the morning."

A phone rang, trilling over a tune that sounded suspiciously like... what was that Zentrum pop star called, Neon? Neon's latest single, so Hikari knew it couldn't possibly be her phone. All the same, Miyako didn't seem to be making any move to pick it up. "'yako, are you going to get that?"

The older girl shrugged in a clear dismissal. "It's probably for Dais. If it's really that important, they'll go through to my cell."

After another couple of rings, there came a groan (well, really it was more of a whine) from the direction of the hallway. "'yaaaaakooooo, pick it uuuuup! It's to early to let the machine get it!"

"It's almost noon," Miyako yelled back, with a grin at her best friend.

Giggling, Hikari stood. "I'll get it." She hopped up onto the coffee table as a shortcut to the phone on the wall. "Hi, you've reached the Inoue-Motomiya residence, this is Hikari speaking! To whom may I direct your call?"

"You make us sound like we're _married_," Miyako groaned.

The girl on the other end of the line sounded so hysterical that Hikari barely heard her. "_Hikari, what are you doing answering Miyako's phone; what am I _sayingthat's_ not why I called, oh my _god_, Hikari, it's so horrible—_"

"Minami?" Hikari guessed correctly. Immediately Miyako sat up a little bit straighter, coming to a standstill in the middle of shooing Tailmon away from the milk pitcher. (The consummate opportunist, Tailmon made off with the milk while both girls were distracted and Poromon was apathetic.) "'nami, calm down, what's wrong? Are you and Mei alright?"

The third member of their tight-knit trio was on vacation in the Southern Archipelago, spending most of her time in Netsurf Village on the southwestern Wallonian coast. She'd invited Hikari and Miyako to come with her, of course, but Hikari was stuck at the Academy or at the very least in Eastend, and Miyako was loathe to leave her research, so Minami had brought her beloved dog, Mei, along instead.

"_Mei's _gone" Minami sobbed.

_Speakerphone?_ Hikari mouthed at Miyako. The older girl quickly got up and joined her at the phone, pushing the correct button on the phone's base. "What do you mean, Mei's gone?" Hikari asked, putting the handset down on the cradle. Miyako gasped.

"_I was out boogie boarding,_" Minami wept, "_and I got caught in a rip—_"

"Are you okay?" Miyako interrupted.

"_Yes, I'm fine, I only got treated for shock,_" she replied, "_but if it wasn't for Mei jumping in and saving me... It's my fault that Mei... It's my fault that he's gone!_"

Their friend started crying again, and a couple of tense minutes passed before she could speak clearly again. "_This was a couple of days ago, he wasn't with me when someone found me on the beach. I thought Mei would just turn up again, you know how sometimes he randomly disappears for a few days then turns up again the next day like he was never gone, but today I got a call from the police and he... I had to identify the body..._"

She broke down once more. Hikari and Miyako exchanged a look, then both spoke at the same time. "Come home."

"Get on the next train to File City and then the next one to the mainland," Hikari urged her, unconsciously putting on what Tailmon called her teacher voice.

"I'll cover the hotel costs for the early checkout," Miyako added, "just send me the bill when it comes. Heck, I'll pay for this phone call too, I know it isn't cheap to call the mainland from the Islands."

"I'll apply to leave the Academy housing and come back home so you don't feel too lonely in the house by yourself, okay?" Hikari offered.

Minami sniffled. "_Thank you. You guys are the best._"

"Duh," scoffed Miyako, "what are best friends for?"

Their friend managed the edge of a chuckle, bringing a smile to Hikari's face. "Check in with either one of us – no, both of us – when you reach File City and Pihanga Station, okay? We'll pick you up at Asuka."

"_Okay,_" Minami replied. "_See you..._"

Within a minute of their friend hanging up, there was a series of knocks at the door. Hikari could have sworn it sounded like Morse code.

Miyako sighed, going to open the door. "Morse code," she muttered, confirming Hikari's suspicions, "that's _got_ to be Kentarou. _Daisuke, Kentarou's here!_"

"Actually," Kentarou said awkwardly, "I was here to see you."

"I _thought_ that seemed a bit long to spell out 'Daisuke'," Hikari remarked, earning a bit of a glare from Miyako. Embarrassed, she looked at Kentarou instead, and at the unidentified digimon sitting happily on his shoulder, and at the... bags?

Miyako blinked. "Is Bun okay?"

"Mokyu!" the little digimon replied.

"Yeah, he's great," Kentarou added, "actually, that's the problem..."

After a moment in which Daisuke emerged from the hallway muttering under his breath that noon was _still_ too early to get up, Miyako groaned. "Oh, no, don't tell me..."

"The RA found Bun," he explained, "and you know how Bun doesn't like staying still and pretending to be a stuffed animal, and Kiyoshi's got a good head on her shoulders and worked out he was a digimon, so I kind of got kicked out and need a place to live..."

"What _is_ this place," Miyako demanded rhetorically, "a _boarding house_?"

"I'd say a mansion, to be honest," Kentarou hazarded quietly, making a pathetic and desperate attempt to hide behind Bun as Hikari palmed her face.

-

"_It isn't fair, the way we treat digimon in Zentrum. Every Wild One that turns up gets the Digital Security Guard on their cases and they're killed within an hour, and only a precious few digimon get the chance for a new life in the Archipelago. Who are we to just destroy them? Of course they attack when they appear in Zentrum, they're lost and confused and they just lash out. Digimon have the right to live too._"

"_But they hurt innocent people!_"

"_Which is why I've developed the ring. This keeps them under control. As long as they have the ring on, they're as docile as cats, because I can tell them what to do, where to go, perhaps most importantly, what to eat. It's the only way for the Wild Ones to live._"

"_The supervisor of the Digital Security Guard, Director Tetsuya Hashiba, could not be reached for comment, and nor could Yamaki Mitsuo, overseer of the Hypnos tracing department, or Captain Rentarou Satsuma, leader of the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad. However, the Digital Security Guard has released a statement disclaiming any affiliation with this self-declared 'Digimon Kaiser', and are said to be taking a precautionary stance in these early stages of the Kaiser's reign. This is Mikihara Norun, for 3 News._"

Kim frowned, and clicked the slider on her laptop's media player, dragging it back to the start of the clip. Beyond the obvious – she didn't like what was going on – something seemed a little off about this news item.

"Kimberley," called Donna, "could you turn that down, I'm trying to work here."

"Sorry," Kim replied, frowning at the use of her full name. All the same, she turned the volume on the file down accordingly. "I just don't like what's going on."

"Neither does the Guard," Jenrya pointed out, glancing up at her. "But you didn't hear that from me."

"I won't tell a soul," Kim promised, staring at the pixilated, overly compressed so-called Kaiser on her screen. "The Kaiser looks familiar, Donna. Does he look familiar to you?"

"Lots of people have blue hair," Donna sighed, with the air of one who had gone over this several times before.

Confused, Kim tilted her head to the side as she watched the clip again. "And there's something in the way he talks, too..."

"I think you've just seen that clip too many times," Jenrya advised, "you're starting to read too much into it."

"Maybe..." murmured Kim, unconvinced.

The Digital Accidents Tactics Squad agent turned back to Donna, absent-mindedly twiddling his thumbs. "I know you didn't call me here to watch the news."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Donna replied. "The thing is, I've found Lopmon, which means I've probably also found your sister."

Jenrya stood abruptly, eyes suddenly going darker. "Where is she?"

"Whoa, sit down there, cowboy," blurted out Donna, alarmed. "Actually, funny that I mention the word 'cowboy', because you can have three guesses as to where Shuichon is and the first two don't count..."

Immediately Jenrya blanched. It wasn't a good look for him. "Don't tell me she's in Westside?"

"Okay then, I won't tell you," Donna muttered under her breath. "At the very least, the coordinates point to Abilene, and Lopmon does seem to stay within the city boundaries, so Shuichon can't be out on a ranch or something."

Slowly, he slouched back into his seat. "What's she doing in Abilene? It's dangerous out there in the west. That's why Mom insisted we move here when she was born, she said she couldn't bear to raise one more child in Westside, and that was still almost ten years before the Milleniumon attack, too."

Ever flippant, Donna shrugged. "Don't ask me why, just where. Speaking of which..."

She stood, crossing the room to her Table of Taxes (as she'd named it upon her last re-filing session) and fetching her invoice book. Returning to the small coffee table she and Jenrya had been working at, Donna quickly filled in an invoice and handed it to him. Barely glancing at the amount of money he owed the private investigator except to copy it onto his form, Jenrya signed off a check and left it on the table, preparing to leave.

"A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Lee," Donna reminded him, holding out her hand for him to shake at the door. "Best of luck finding your sister."

For a moment, he merely stared at her hand as if unsure what to do with it, before grasping it in a firm handshake. "Thank you."

-

To be entirely honest, Jenrya was really hoping his father wouldn't pick up the phone when he called. He was grateful when he got the answering machine. "_Hello, you've reached Lee Janyuu. Unfortunately I can't come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the tone, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can._"

Jenrya endured the same message again but in the native language of Folder, his father's home country, before the phone beeped in his ear and he was able to leave his message. He also spoke in Fold, as he usually did when talking to his dad. "_Hi, Dad. It's Jianliang. A while ago I paid a private investigator, Donna Eis – yeah, the woman who helped out during the Lucky Mouse thing – to find Shaochung. I never told you about it because she wasn't having much luck and I didn't want to get your hopes up. But lately she found an accurate way to track Lopmon, and her tracking suggests Lopmon and Shaochung are in Westside. Abilene, to be precise. I'm taking leave to go to the west and bring Shaochung home, so don't be alarmed when you ring my house and I'm not there, or when you ring my cell and I'm out of range. Love you, Dad. Bye._"

He hung up, gently placing the phone back in its cradle before starting to head down the stairs and out of the Digital Security Guard headquarters.

"Boo."

Embarrassingly, Jenrya had to stop himself from jumping. He still whipped around a little too fast, though, only to see Masuken grinning at him. "Do you really have to sneak up on me like that?"

"I was practicing," Masuken replied blithely, "what kind of Accidents agent would I be if I couldn't sneak up on people?"

Beginning to walk again, Jenrya rolled his eyes. Masuken matched his stride, still almost irritatingly casual. "So, where are you headed off to?"

Jenrya gave him a look. "Home, genius."

The younger man chose to ignore this remark. "I just saw Sigma hanging around the office."

"Maybe because he works here?" Jenrya suggested helpfully.

"The Omega office," Masuken clarified. "Satsuma said you were going on leave."

"That's right," Jenrya replied.

"Without _me_?" Masuken pouted. The effect was sadly ruined when he had to push up his glasses. Jenrya almost laughed. "What's the leave for? I know it's not maternity leave..."

He snorted. "It's... it's my sister."

"You found her?" the blonde said in surprise.

"In Westside," Jenrya added.

"So you're just taking off to fetch her back?" Masuken guessed correctly. "Look, how old is she now, nineteen? She's a big girl now, surely she can fend for herself."

Jenrya said nothing, only sped up a little now that they were in the car park.

Accurately sensing he wasn't going to change Jenrya's mind on this matter, Masuken decided to change tactics. "When do you and Terriermon leave?"

Preoccupied in taking the lights and siren off of the top of his car, Jenrya was silent for a moment before answering. "Tomorrow."

"You were just going to waltz on out to the west without telling me?" Masuken demanded.

Jenrya studiously avoided his eyes as he got into the driver's seat, but didn't close the car door either. "My Trailmon ticket's pre-booked."

"You can't do this," the younger man objected, "you can't just make plans to fall off the edge of the world for god knows how long without telling me, you can't just _leave_."

"And why not?" Jenrya challenged him. "Server doesn't stop at the Hione Hills, you know. Do I _owe_ you something, Masuken? Is there a _reason_ you have this constant need to know where I am? Am I your _boyfriend_?"

In response and possibly to shut him up before he could get worked up into a decent tirade, Masuken kissed him. Jenrya was grateful his preferred level of the car park was empty at this hour.

* * *

Hi, anyone reading this far. Congratulations for getting this far! 

**A Who's Who of Non-Show or Obscure Characters from the Last Five Chapters**, for people who were curious but too lazy to look it up (this will become a regular thing every five chapters)

Chapter One  
Donna is from the_Digimon World 2_ Playstation game. (Her surname, however, is a bit of a song reference.)  
Masuken and Hikaru (and their partners) are from the Chinese manhua (manga) _D-Cyber_.  
Sigma is from the_ Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01_ manga.

Chapter Two  
Derek is the only named Australian digidestined in _Adventure 02_.  
Daisuke's economics lecturer, Alice Anderson, is in contact with Izzy in at least the dub of _Adventure 02_.  
The guys in the bathroom haven't been assigned characters.  
Kentarou is from the _Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01_ special _C'mon Digimon_.  
Professor Piyotte is also from the _Digimon World 2_ Playstation game.  
Doctor Alice Mackay is not a typo on Alice McCoy of _Tamers_, but a random enemy Tamer in the _Digimon World 3_ Playstation game.  
Jeremy is one of Takato's classmates in _Tamers_ and has no apparent Japanese name. He wears a yellow shirt in the series and has dark hair.  
Mari is from the _Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01_ manga.  
Chichos, aka Rosa, is the only named (and, for that matter, visible) Mexican digidestined in _Adventure 02_.  
Ash is my friend Starshone's development of an Australian digidestined in _Adventure 02_ for the Livejournal RPG Digilife. He's the second digidestined you see on the boat, with the brown hair, dark eyes, orange shirt, and Pukamon.  
Anna is one of the three Russian digidestined in _Adventure 02_, and has the short blonde hair and the Unimon.

Chapter Three  
Midori and her brother Kurt are from the _Digimon World 3_ Playstation game.  
Neither the police station nor the hospital receptionist have characters assigned.  
Kim (and her team) is from the _Digimon World 2_ Playstation game.  
Yuu (and his partner, Gaomon) is from the _Digimon Next_ manga.  
Katsura Kosaburo is from the _Digimon World DATS_ PS2 game.

Chapter Four  
Izumi drove me insane, but that's off-topic.  
The Gabumon Ryo mentions is the partner of Hiro, the hero of the _Digimon World_ Playstation game.  
The Gizamon Ryo also mentions is the partner of another random Australian digidestined in_ Adventure 02_. He's the last on the boat, has blonde hair, is wearing a blue shirt, and is built like a prototype Junpei.

Chapter Five  
Asanuma Nami is the Japanese name of Takato's teacher Ms. Asaji in _Tamers_.  
Minami (and her dearly departed dog) is from the first _Tamers_ movie, _Battle of Adventurers_.  
Kiyoshi, Kentarou's former RA, is from the _D-Cyber_ manga.  
Mikihara Norun, 3 News reporter, is from the _Digimon Next_ manga.


	6. I Give it Another Minute

Shortish chapter because these two together would have been really long. :)

* * *

Sometimes – no, actually, make that every time they were at the office – Jun really wished that her field team, the Beta field team (or as Masaru and Hikaru occasionally called them when Doug wasn't in earshot, "Yo, n00bs!") had been together longer. Or that they were more successful with Wild Ones more often. Anything that would make them worthy of either a bigger office or upgraded digivices, like those iCs that the Alpha team had. This room just really wasn't big enough for her, Elecmon, an antsy Tatum, an overprotective Tsukaimon, a restless Doug who tended to annoy Tatum when he was bored (which was far too often lately), Doug's Elecmon (thankfully far more placid than his Tamer), his overeager Gotsumon, a Floramon who couldn't digivolve, and Doug's latest acquisition from his last trip to the Archipelago, a Tyrannomon who couldn't _de_digivolve. (It was a miracle he'd gotten him through the city to the office, never mind _to_ the city.)

Having a Magami-accredited Tamer on a Digital Accidents Tactics Squad field team seemed like a good idea on the outside and it certainly made sense to Jun – more digimon on a team meant that the Wild Ones could be dealt with more efficiently – but this kind of logic just didn't seem to apply to Doug. The Southerner had gotten so used to League battles, where fights were two on two at most, that any more than that was simply too many cooks in the kitchen for him. It was frustrating to watch and it was frustrating for his digimon, as Floramon and Elecmon sometimes told Jun. Sometimes she really wondered why Doug didn't just leave some of his digimon at home in Wallonia.

"Do you know you're staring at Doug?" Tatum suddenly whispered in her face. Surprised, Jun jumped what felt like almost a foot but probably wasn't any more than a couple of inches at the most. "I mean, he hasn't noticed, but..." She grinned. It was kind of alarming. "_Shit_, Jun, he just didn't seem like your type."

"He is _not_ my—!" Jun started, only to be interrupted by the intercom reluctantly buzzing into life.

"_There's a Wild One realizing in Factorial Town!_" announced Reika. Jun would have thought that after several years working at the Digital Security Guard, she wouldn't sound so panicked every attack. "_If it gets loose, half the city's electrical grid could be knocked out!_"

"_Eh, I give it another minute before the Kaiser slaps a ring onto it,_" Megumi said mildly.

Tatum moved to their end of the intercom and pressed the 'speak' button. "I say two. Less than that and I'll shout you a coffee."

"_You're on, Tau!_"

"_Megumi!_" Reika admonished her fellow technician. "_Miki, here's the initial scan, can you get a reading on it?_"

"_It's pretty big, I can tell you that,_" said the other Megumi.

"_Thank you for your input,_" Reika retorted wryly.

"_Alright, I've got it,_" Miki interjected after a moment, "_it's a Lighdramon. Adult level, data attribute, Metal Empire family, uses electric attacks._"

Jun elbowed Tatum aside for room by the intercom. "My brother has one of those. I didn't think they could go bad, his is a vaccine att."

"Welcome to Zentrum," Tatum sighed.

Reika ignored this exchange, focusing as she always did on the job at hand. "_It's starting to attack some of the local factories. I'm uploading a virus to the wifi network before it can reach the power plant, in T minus—_"

"_Bang!_" interrupted Megumi the technician. "_Aaaaand it's calming down and wandering out of town. Did anyone clock that?_"

Doug stopped his shadow-boxing in the corner to toss his stopwatch to Tatum, who caught it deftly. "Forty seconds. Damn!"

"_You owe me coffee!_" sang Megumi.

There was a crackle which had to be from Captain Satsuma's intercom – he didn't really have the best technology in the Guard. "_If there's any more this morning the Kaiser will probably get to them first, you might as well go home._"

Another quieter, more short-lived buzz indicated Yamaki was gate crashing the system too. "_At this rate, the police will probably decide to hire _him_ and then we'll all be out of a job._"

"_I just love your optimism, boss,_" Megumi crooned.

-

It was really just not a good day for Jenrya. The first thing he'd had to face that morning was a pouting Masuken, and Masuken was always _unbearable_ once he got it into his head that he was going to pout. Masuken had then tried to do everything in his power to stop Jenrya from getting onto that Trailmon to the west, including but by no means limited to burning both the bacon _and_ the eggs the three of them were_going_ to have for breakfast (Jenrya had resorted to a couple of sandwiches bought at Pihanga Station), stealing his clothes (Jenrya had rolled his eyes in disgust and merely taken Masuken's jeans, too long as they were), and eventually he had taken the rather desperate measure of locking Terriermon in the laundry room (granted, it _had_ taken Jenrya a good fifteen minutes to work out where the heck he was).

He made it to the station eventually, though, even if Masuken followed him all the way down the Trailmon platform. Once there, Jenrya gave him a questioning look. "Do you know how _annoying_ you are this morning?"

"I was under the impression I was being charming," Masuken replied, examining his glasses for scratches.

Terriermon sniffed. "Locking me in the laundry is _not_ charming."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Masuken hazarded. "Just be glad the washing machine itself didn't have a lock."

Jenrya glanced at his watch. The Trailmon was late, and all delays considered, it was a good thing, too. "You're really determined to keep me in Zentrum, aren't you?"

"Was," the younger man hastily corrected him. "Was. Note the past tense. You told me you were leaving and I just kind of... stopped thinking."

He looked up at Masuken in surprise. "That's not like you."

Masuken was gazing at the ground as if it held all the secrets of the universe. "You have that effect on me. In a good way. It's like, around you, I don't have to think."

Was this really the time for an inappropriately emotional moment? Jenrya didn't answer.

"But then in the car on the way here, I remembered the look on your face the day you came into work after your sister ran away. It was like you'd lost Terriermon or something. And I realized just how important finding her is to you, because you never gave up even when Donna wasn't coming up with anything and the police had given up. So I figured I'd better let you go."

"Look, honestly, we don't have to talk about this," attempted Jenrya. "We're not in a relationship or anything; we're just workmates who happen to sleep together occasionally because no one else is going to put up with our odd hours. Well, okay, except the prostitutes around your place, but that's a different story. We're like... we're like Yamaki and Reika, except we don't live together."

Abruptly, Masuken's eyes met his, bright and focused behind his glasses. "Would you like to?"

The Trailmon pulled into the platform, but Jenrya could only gape at Masuken in shock. "Is this really the moment?"

The younger man shrugged awkwardly. "Well, you've got the whole trip and then some to think about it."

"I _have_," Jenrya replied. "_No._"

"For convenience's sake," argued Masuken, looking very much like he wanted to say something entirely different. "It splits the living costs, we can carpool and save the ozone layer; look, Jun and Tatum on the n00b squad – sorry, the Beta team – live together, Miki lives with the Megumis, and if you care about what they'll think at work you can just point at Yamaki and Reika."

"And if half the Guard was jumping off a cliff would you do that too, is that it?" he challenged. "Should I take up _smoking_ because Yamaki does it?"

"Don't be an ass," Masuken pleaded, "that's Hikaru's job. Come on, at least say you'll think about it. Please. You can come back to Zentrum with your sister and say you won't but at least think about it."

Shaking his head in wonder, Jenrya stepped onto the Trailmon but didn't quite look for a seat just yet. "I'll think."

"Thank you." said Masuken. "Hurry back, Hikaru's unbearable around Sigma."

Jenrya managed to make a nod look like another 'I'll think about it'. Masuken moved to kiss him, but he turned his head, and Masuken landed on his cheek. Looking a little taken aback, Masuken gave an uncomfortable wave. "Well, take care."

"Yeah," replied Jenrya, waving back and finding a seat. He glanced out the window as the Trailmon took off to see Masuken saying something that, as far as he could lip read, looked like 'love you'.

As Terriermon pulled faces at the young girl sitting across from them, making her giggle, Jenrya gazed out the window without seeing Pihanga Station disappear or the Hione Hills fast approaching. What was getting into Masuken lately? First that 'I love you' a few weeks ago, now asking to move in with him. It was like they were in an actual relationship, not the workmates with benefits approach they'd been operating under, and the younger man expected milestones and a civil union and children via a lesbian couple or something equally absurd. It was never going to happen. Jenrya didn't love him. He was a good friend, good in bed, and good at his job. That was all.

"I'm gonna go up to the front with Yuka and talk to the Trailmon, okay?" Terriermon checked, derailing his Trailmon of thought.

"Okay," he replied distractedly.

Terriermon grinned and clambered up onto the girl's shoulder, and, happily chattering away, she made her way to the link between carriages, but Terriermon stopped her at the door to glance back at Jenrya. There must have been something written in his face, because Terriermon looked a little worried. "Hey, Jen, momentai."

Jenrya forced himself to smile. Unconvinced, Terriermon poked his tongue out at him, before he and the girl disappeared into the next carriage.

"That... Terriermon," said the woman in front of him – she must have been the girl's mother – before he could return to his reverie. "Is it _your_ digimon?"

"Yes, he's my digimon partner," Jenrya replied, attempting to assume his 'official police business' tone and failing miserably. He settled for 'friendly' instead. "But don't call him 'mine', it'll just make him mad."

She still looked concerned. Jenrya tried smiling again. This time, it seemed to work. "I've known him since I was thirteen years old. He's really good with kids. Your daughter will be fine with him. And if you're really worried I can get in touch with Terriermon for you and have a look at what he's seeing. The wonders of technology these days, eh."

"Thank you," the woman smiled. "I'm Misuzu, your partner went off with my daughter Yuka, and the sleepyhead next to me is my husband Kenji."

He shook the hand she offered him. "Jenrya."

"You're so young to be going out to the west alone," mused Misuzu, "are you running away to become a cowboy?"

Inwardly, Jenrya bristled. Young? He was twenty-three! On the outside, he merely shook his head. "Nah, I've got a fairly steady job already, if the Kaiser doesn't make us all redundant. Terriermon and I work with the Guard on one of the Digital Accidents field teams."

"The Digital Security Guard?" Misuzu asked. "Sorry, we're Eastenders, so while we've been hearing about the Kaiser and all the would-be attacks on the news, I'm still a little vague on the whole thing..."

"Not a problem," Jenrya replied, "I know it can seem pretty weird to anyone who's not from Zentrum. Wild digimon in Zentrum are pretty feral, so the Digital Security Guard seeks to protect civilians from the dangers that Wild Ones pose. It's basically divided into two groups: Hypnos traces Wild Ones as they appear, identifies them, and tries to stop them remotely. If their measures fail, a Digital Accidents Tactics Squad field team goes in to deal with the Wild One and evaluate the damage."

Misuzu wrinkled her nose. "So are there Wild Ones in Westside or something?"

"If you believe the rumors. I'm not actually going out for anything work-related." He hesitated, then decided he didn't want to talk about it with a complete stranger. "It's a family thing."

"Ah," Misuzu said, unenlightened. "We're just going out for a bit of a family holiday."

"I always thought the Northern Territories were more of a tourist trap?" Jenrya suggested.

She winced a bit. "Bad experience there before Yuka was born."

"I'm sorry."

The woman briskly shook her head. "It's not your fault." Brightening, she smiled again. "This was Yuka's idea, but I'm actually kind of looking forward to it."

Oh, great, she was chatty. And Jenrya had been planning to use this time to catch up on his Masuken-stolen sleep. This was going to be a long ride.


	7. You Really Have to Talk About the Cook

All things considered, Shuichon was having a pretty good day. Babel Enterprises, always one of the early Birdramon of the season (though frankly, it showed in the quality of their meat), had just made it into town. While the herd idled in the holding pens just outside of Dastur Station, the boys of the ranch were living it up in Abilene. Yes, the first wave of customers had almost run her off her feet and had made it necessary for her to send Juri on an emergency run to Acheter, but so what? Abilene was always more fun with more people around, end of story.

Or so she thought, until Lopmon suddenly hopped up onto the kitchen windowsill, eyes wide and panicked. Resisting the urge to drop her knife in shock, Shuichon put the knife down on the bench top carefully. "What is it, Lopmon? Did Terriermon push you in the river while doing the laundry again?"

The child digimon shook his head violently, waiting to speak until he'd caught his breath. "He's here!"

"_Who's_ here?" Shuichon asked patiently.

"Your brother!" Lopmon replied. "I could smell Terriermon when they came into town but I figured it was just Wallace's partner and I was just getting nostalgic, you know?"

Shuichon gasped. "Where are they?"

"I saw them at Le Coucher," her partner answered, "_he saw me_, but Wallace thinks he just saw Lopmon – um, _his_ Lopmon – and was going on about having two partners when I left. But he may come here at any minute, there's no food at Biber!"

"Crap!" Shuichon swore. Lopmon swung up onto her shoulder as she made her way into the saloon proper. "If a guy with dark blue hair and a Terriermon comes in, you never saw me! And if you really have to talk about the cook, her name's... um... Suzie, okay?"

"Sure," said one of the customers, prompting murmurs of agreement from the other people in the saloon.

Mimi waited until she'd put a drink down before she gently took Shuichon by the elbow, stopping her behind the bar before she could retreat back into the kitchen to hide. "Shuichon, what's all this about?"

For a moment, Shuichon had to think about how to explain her situation to put herself in the best possible light without lying about anything. "There's a man I know in town who I'd really rather not talk to." That was suitably vague, right?

It looked like Mimi was about to say something, but then Shuichon caught sight of a flash of blue hair over her shoulder. "Hide me!" she squeaked, hitting the floor.

She knew her older brother when she saw him. Within a moment, his voice was too, too close. "You're Mimi, right?"

"That's my name, don't wear it out," her boss replied, a hint of her customary flirtatiousness in her voice. "What can I do ya for? Your first drink in Abilene's free!"

God, it was so _typical_ of him to ignore the cute girl and the offer of free alcohol! "I'll be fine. Wallace informs me you're the owner of this..." There was a trace of derision in his voice that Shuichon only picked up because she grew up with him. "..._fine_ establishment. Do you have a girl named Lee Shuichon working here?"

Mimi started tapping her nails on the tabletop. Now that Shuichon thought about it, it sounded kind of like Morse code. Living in Abilene, she'd had to learn it in case of emergency, on the off chance that they'd need to send an urgent message to the ranches and the homesteads. _Dit dit dah, dah dah dah, dah dah, dit_... "No, I've never met a girl by that name, sorry." _Oh_. 'U o me.'

"I can smell Lopmon," Terriermon's voice insisted, "not Wallace's, either. He's close."

Shuichon held her breath, and briefly but seriously considered tipping a bottle of whiskey over her partner.

"Ms..."

"Tachikawa," prompted Mimi.

There was the sound of flipping, and her brother put his 'official police business' voice on. "Ms. Tachikawa, I have reason to believe that Shuichon is on your premises. I'm on the Zentrum police force. If you don't cooperate, I have a warrant to search your property."

Oh, god, Shuichon thought, they probably all think I'm a criminal. Mimi tapped her nails on the table accordingly: _Dit dah dah, dah, dit dit dah dit, dah dit dit, dit dit, dah dit dit, dit dit dah, dah dit dit, dah dah dah._ It took Shuichon slightly longer to translate this message. '_WTF did u do?_'

"Go home," advised Ruki, (_bless_ Ruki, Shuichon thought fervently), "Zentral law doesn't apply out here."

"Mimi, babe, is this guy bothering you?" one of the cowboys (Shuichon thought it was Tadashi) chimed in. "I can bother _him_ for you if you want."

"Thank you, but I'll be fine," Mimi replied firmly.

"Nah, you're right," someone else – Taizou? – put in helpfully. "This guy needs to be taught a lesson."

Someone cocked a gun. A_ whoosh_ of displaced air indicated at least two guns had been drawn. Oh, _crap_, thought Shuichon.

"Get out," barked Mimi, her voice suddenly shrill with authority. "You know my rules on gunplay in here, take it outside!"

"That's it, I'm digivolving," said Terriermon. "Terriermon, digivolve to—"

If she didn't stop this _now_, someone was going to get hurt, or worse, killed, and knowing her family's luck it was probably going to be her brother. Reluctantly, Shuichon got to her feet. "That won't be necessary."

Immediately, if grumbling as they did so, the men lowered their guns to their meals. Her brother's digimon partner merely looked smug. "I told you so."

Terriermon was still a smart aleck; some things never changed. But in the two years since Shuichon had run away from their family's home in Ahora, Jenrya had. It wasn't that he'd grown, but he stood a little taller somehow as he eased out of his defensive stance. There was a cut on his chin that Shuichon strongly suspected was from shaving, and there were dark shadows under his eyes. He looked a little leaner, too, but not in the fit way, more like he hadn't been eating right. His hair was a little too long as well. Shuichon decided he hadn't been looking after himself very well.

"Shuichon, what are you doing here?" Jenrya demanded, after a moment of simply staring at her.

"Working," Shuichon replied evenly. "Can I get you anything? Terriermon, do you still like manjuu?"

"That would be great," beamed Terriermon, before being silenced by a glare from Jenrya.

Her brother swapped into Fold, perhaps in the hopes of simulating some sense of privacy in the crowded saloon. "_How long have you been here?_"

It was rude to talk in a language people around you couldn't understand. Shuichon pointedly replied in Servian. "I've been here in the west for the past six months, but I was here for most of... the year before last, by now. Jen-niisan, you're causing a scene. Actually, you've already caused a scene. Come out back with me, we'll discuss this over chao fen."

"Yeah, and one dish of crispy fried chicken, three onigiri, and a flame on the iceberg," Mimi added, sounding a little apologetic.

"I'll take Terriermon back to Le Coucher," Lopmon volunteered, "we'll hang out with Lopmon and Terriermon."

Shuichon waved a hand in assent as she led Jenrya into the kitchen. No one would disturb them in there; it was established fact of Voler that the kitchen was _her_ domain, and if anyone who wasn't Mimi, Ruki, or Anna came in they'd soon be kicked right back out. (Even Lopmon wasn't allowed in, as he tended to be a walking disaster around anything you could eat or drink.)

Jenrya leaned on the counter until Shuichon handed him a chopping board with an onion and a knife on top.

"Chop that."

For a moment, all he could do was stare at first the onion and then at her, but to his credit, he didn't say anything to indicate his surprise at this turn of events. "How thinly?"

Shuichon held her thumb and forefinger about a third of an inch apart and went back to the beef she'd been cutting up when Lopmon had come in. For a few minutes, the siblings worked in silence.

"So... why are you in Westside?" Jenrya asked hesitantly.

Hesitancy in Jenrya, that wasn't like him. Though, Shuichon supposed, he _had_ just had a room of guns pointed at him. That wasn't normally something the Digital Security Guard had to deal with.

"Because the Archipelago was kind of lame," she replied shortly, sliding the beef into a wok and going to the gas cooker. "We've had a few guys through here who used to be Tamers, and Ryo's cousin's in the Elite Four down there, so I thought I'd give it a go myself. They say if you can handle the West, you can handle anything."

She didn't look up from her gas cooker, but she could hear the augmented seventh chord of confusion in her brother's voice. "Maybe I should ask what you've been doing since you ran away."

The gas lit, and Shuichon held the wok over it, tipping in some canola oil and beginning to stir. "Well, after the city, the police always checks Eastend first, right, so we went up north." Jenrya hissed slightly. "Oh, shush, the Koromon Village is nice. Hot springs and all that. Anyway, after that we went back to Zentrum and caught the next Trailmon west. Only Abilene's really boring in the off season, so we went south for a few months before coming back here. They wouldn't accept my D-Arc in the League down there, would you believe it? I had to hire out the original model."

"You have a D-Arc?" Jenrya blinked in surprise, passing her the onions.

She gave him a quizzical look, but only for a second – she had to tip the half-cooked beef out. "Well, _duh_, _everyone_ out here with a digimon has one. Except for Mari, but that's because her digivice is pretty cool already. Why?"

Jenrya came to her side. She was about to tell him to cook some rice when he held out his own D-Arc. Instead, she gasped as she put in the bean sprouts and Jenrya's onion. "Where did you get that? And where's the card reader?"

"A woman named Donna Eis made it for me to see how it worked," Jenrya replied. "She'd been wanting to test it out for a while but she doesn't have digimon of her own. What's a card reader?"

"Oh," Shuichon realized, "you don't have the card game Zentral, I forgot. Does your Donna know an Akiyama Ryo?"

"She's not _my_ Donna," Jenrya snapped (it sounded like he got that sort of thing a lot), "but no, she doesn't, not that I know of."

"I wonder how she managed to make one, then," Shuichon mused.

"Never mind that," Jenrya sighed. "More importantly, when are you coming home?"

"Um, what about never?" she suggested.

Her brother almost slammed his chopping board into the sink. "Mom's been worried sick about you!"

"And now you can go back to Ahora and tell her I'm fine," Shuichon replied evenly.

"Fado," said Jenrya.

"What?"

"Fado," he repeated, "Mom and Dad moved to Fado once they figured you were gone. It's closer to work for both of them, and they didn't have your school to think about."

Shuichon focused on adding the ho fun and a bit of soy sauce to her wok to avoid looking at him. "Is _that_ what they think? That I'm dead?"

"You walked out of our lives," her brother reminded her, "you never called or e-mailed or so much as sent a postcard saying 'the weather in Kiraku's great, wish you were here' or anything. I work for the police, do you know how many people just disappear? What were they_ supposed_ to think?"

"I never contacted you because I knew that if I did, you'd use it to track me down and drag me back to Zentrum," she retorted, still trying to keep her tone reasonably civil. "Though it looks like you've managed to do that without my help anyway."

Jenrya obviously didn't appreciate this effort, however, and nor did he take this blatant hint to tell her how he found her. "Why'd you leave?"

Only then did Shuichon turn the gas cooker off, stand the wok in the sink, and turn to face him, eyes flashing. She deliberately kept her hands away from both the bench top and her D-Arc, resisting the urge to either wave a knife around or realize the kunai out of her digivice. "Because I hated it! I was getting sick of school, I was getting sick of having to put Lopmon in a collar every time he so much as stepped onto the balcony, and I was getting sick of how _everyone_, _you_ included, expected me to join the Guard just because I had a digimon! I didn't want to make fighting my life like you did!"

"You tried Taming!" Jenrya shot back.

"Magami League battles aren't to the _death_," she replied angrily, "they're until a digimon is unable to battle! Why would I want to be on call all times of the day to help kill innocent digimon?"

"I only do it to protect people without digimon, to protect people who can't protect themselves, to protect my family!" Jenrya insisted.

"Guess what, Jen?" Shuichon challenged him, dropping her usual honorific in her irritation. "I don't _need_ your protection! I live in Westside, Jen! I helped out when the Shibumi herd stampeded through town, I broke my _own_ horse, I was the first one out there when an injured Drimogemon was rampaging at Dastur Station! And don't pull out any crap about how I can't handle myself in digimon battles, because Lopmon digivolved! And you know what? He skipped a stage; he goes straight from child to perfect! And I helped him get there! Taming in the West isn't like being on the Guard, Jen: You _help_ your digimon, you don't just stand on the sideline and give orders!"

"Digimon don't digivolve that far unless their partners are in danger, what the _hell_ were you doing?" her brother demanded. "Stop putting yourself in danger and come _home_!"

Violently, Shuichon grabbed a plate and transferred the chao fen into it, though she was careful not to drop any on the floor. "And do _what_, join the Guard? Jen, I have a _life_ out here. This _is_ home. I have friends, I have a job that's fun, I'm independent, and I don't have to hide my best friend."

"At least if you're on the Guard you don't _have_ to hide!" Jenrya pointed out. "Look, I'm not leaving Westside until you're coming back home with me!"

_Why_ was he being so _stubborn_ about this? "Then you might as well join one of the ranches, because I'm not leaving any time soon! In case you've forgotten, I'm turning eighteen this year, and then _no one_ can tell me what the hell I should do with my life!" Shuichon thrust a makisu with nori on top of it at him and jabbed her index finger at the still mostly full hangiri standing on the counter. "_Make onigiri!_"

Jenrya gaped at her for a moment, then started looking for the shamoji. "_Fine!_"

Shuichon slammed the kitchen door as she stormed into the saloon, banging the chao fen down onto the bar. Picking up the plate, Ruki glanced at her, but, Shuichon was grateful to note, didn't ask her anything. Good old Ruki. You could always count on her not to be nosy, even if it was because she honestly didn't want to know.

Unfortunately Mimi was not nearly as unintentionally sensitive, and once again her boss stopped her before she could return to the kitchen. "What did that police officer want?"

She sighed. "He's my older brother, one of them, anyway, and he's not an _actual_ police officer, he works on the Guard. I don't know how he found me, but he found me, and now he wants me to come back to Zentrum with him."

"You're not, are you?" asked Mimi gently.

"Hell no," Shuichon declared emphatically. "Abilene's home."

Mimi smiled. "Good. I'd hate to lose you. As a friend, not just as a cook."

Overwhelmed, Shuichon threw her arms around her boss.

* * *

And now it's time to kill the mood with **Cooking with Wikipedia – I mean, Shuichon**, with your host, Ace Aduro!

_Chao fen_: Generally known in North America by the transliteration from Cantonese (for some reason I went with the Mandarin), chow fun. A staple Cantonese dish made of beef stirfried with wide ho fun (or hefen) rice noodles, onions, and bean sprouts. Judging by Wikipedia, Shuichon's cooking it right.

_Onigiri_: Riceballs.

_Flame on the iceberg_: A popular desert in Hong Kong similar to baked Alaska, composed of a sponge cake with an icecream ball in the middle with cream, whiskey, and syrup over the top. The icecream is set on fire before serving.

_Makisu_: A mat woven from bamboo and cotton used in food preparation in Japan.

_Nori_: Edible seaweed sheets used as wrappers for sushi and onigiri, made of toasted algae.

_Hangiri_: Rice barrel.

_Shamoji_: A flat rice paddle, traditionally made of wood, but if you own a rice cooker you'll probably have a plastic one sitting around.


	8. Trust Me, It's Never Going to Happen

Hi to the fifteen-odd regular readers (I'm assuming from the hits)! Another monster of a chapter. Sorry, guys! They just wouldn't stop spouting backstory.

* * *

The digivice iC had started out as a doodle in the back of Miyako's 'Culture in the Southern Archipelago' notebook. Easily Miyako's favorite unit in the class was digimon Taming. It wasn't something done on the Servian mainland so it made for compelling teaching, though her lecturer's reenactments of battles left something to be desired. (Sure, Professor Kondoo may have actually been from the Archipelago, and he had his own digimon and had been in the League to boot, but he was still a really lousy actor.) Most people in her class were fascinated by the battles and the concept of digimon being both friends and battle partners, and a few had been attracted to the sociological side of the League and digimon rights, but Miyako was more interested in the practical issues arising from Taming. 

So while her classmates discovered Bubble Shooter instead of researching the Magami League, Miyako spent her time on message boards for Southern Tamers, asking Tamers what the most annoying part of Taming digimon was. Many said having to carry a whole bunch of extra equipment to heal your digimon or to teach them new techniques and attacks. Several people complained about how inconvenient digitama were to cart around, and a few also bemoaned the sheer impracticality of having several, often very large digimon following you around ("every fifty yards I have to check that I haven't lost one," one anonymous user whined). One person even went so far as to complain about how the 'digidex' (the device they used in the South to remotely access the Magami League database of digimon information) was completely separate from the digivice, but by far the most common complaint – one several people she knew in Eastend shared – was having to clean up after one's un-toilet trained digimon.

It wasn't until halfway through the paper that she thought, why not make a digivice that can do all that for you? So as the class began to take a more in depth look at some of the bigger islands, Miyako adopted Mina's ruler and started drawing. She was a bit tired of the rounded designs of the original digivice and the D3 and the D-Arc that Donna had managed to make from having memorized a friend's dead brother (something like that, Miyako had always been a bit vague on that)'s designs, and had decided to go for something a bit more rectangular, like the D-Scanners she'd made for all those kids with the Spirits of digimon up North, or like the D-Cyber Donna had come up with by fusing a digivice with a cellphone.

Then again, the visual design was a little useless without the programming and circuitry behind it, so that became her next focus. The main thing to tackle was how to convert physical objects back into energy while retaining enough of their former shapes to convert them back into their original forms none the worse for wear. Miyako was by no means a physics student, but the good thing about digimon and both their eggs and their excretion was that they were all composed of data, so instead of making an effort to break every law of physics ever theorized, all she had to do was write some code, and more than making digivices look nice, _that_ was her strong point. With barely any help from Koushirou, Professor Piyotte, _or_ Donna, Miyako managed to write code that would store a digimon inside the digivice as data and then realize them again, convert digitama and excretion into data – and in the case of the bodily waste, delete it, repair broken code in a digimon, and write new code for new attacks that could then be uploaded to a digimon. She even passed all of her midterms.

Unfortunately, her digivice iC (C for Code, i because that was all the rage these days – iPods, iPhones, what would they think of next?) looked like it was set to stay as a set of programs on her laptop and some doodles in the back of her notebook. Miyako really didn't have the money to buy a whole lot of plastic, moulds, and circuit boards to actually make the thing. There was a reason why only she, Hikari, Daisuke, Takeru, and Iori had D3s, and that was because five D3s was all she could afford to have made while trying to pay off her student loan. Then Donna had pointed out what _she'd_ done with the D-Cyber: The Zentral woman had patented the designs and the coding and sold it to the Digital Security Guard, who were always up for experimenting with new digivices. Donna often reminded her that just giving away the D-Scanners like she had to the Northern tribe leaders had been pretty stupid, so Miyako figured she'd take her advice this time around.

However, she took the more mercenary route, advertising the new digivice and its features (it also displayed basic digimon data and had both a danger alert and a flashlight) and offering it to the highest bidder. The Magami League was definitely interested – after all, it had been mostly inspired by Southern Tamers – but in the end, the Digital Security Guard put more money on the table. So much money, in fact, that Miyako could, given some decent budgeting, live off it for the rest of her life. Naturally, she decided to do so, dropping out of Uzume College and declaring herself retired. Keen to make sure she never ran out of money, she hired a business broker and threw a good amount of her money at the stock market and sunk some more into trees and a cattle company in the west. Unless some disaster like poor rain or illness in the herd struck, the cattle industry was a relatively certain investment. People always wanted beef. And the trees were a good failsafe to reap the returns from in thirty years time.

The first thing she did after paying her student loan was to pay off her parents' business loan. Then she moved out of her rented flat and designed her own house. In the beginning, Miyako only lived in this house with Poromon. But having grown up in a house where there was a constant war for the bathroom, she had the place designed with myriad bathrooms, so she could lord it over her siblings when they came to visit, she could pick and choose which bathroom she'd use at her whim, and both she and Poromon could go to different bathrooms at the same time. In a moment of madness – perhaps imagining a somewhat distant future in which she'd marry a cute computer nerd and have several children – she had several bedrooms put into the house as well. At the very least, having more rooms meant she had more to design and pick color schemes for. She didn't have to choose between color schemes and decoration themes, she could use them all!

It was all a little pointless, though. Overpricing her designs like that meant that she now had more money than she knew what to do with, and it really showed in her house. She didn't have the patience to plant her money in her garden, and the novelty of paying other people to do things she was perfectly capable of doing herself, like cooking or cleaning, wore off fast. So in a way, Miyako was somewhat grateful when Daisuke turned up on her doorstep asking for a place to stay. Not only did she have someone else to rattle around her huge but ultimately pretty empty house with her, but it meant that another bedroom would actually be used. And maybe Daisuke broke things (well, okay, so that was mainly Chibimon) and he was always late with the rent (charged mainly because no matter how well off Miyako was, he hated to freeload), but he was fun to have around.

Having all those extra rooms definitely paid off once Kentarou, Hikari, and Minami moved in. They still all had their pick of rooms, even if Minami and Hikari mainly picked theirs for the proximity to Miyako's room and Kentarou chose the room furthest away from the girls' while still being close to Daisuke's. After growing up with siblings, Miyako would never have thought living with four other people and four digimon would be her idea of a good time, but somehow it was. There was more variety in the food (Kentarou was a much better cook than Daisuke and Hikari had been taught to cook by her older brother Taichi), and there was always someone around to amuse Minami and keep her from getting too depressed about Mei.

Sometimes, though, Daisuke didn't seem to be having nearly as fun, and he often complained to her about the number of people and digimon around. "Miyako, when are Minami and Hikari moving out?" he whinged, looking up from his PC (Miyako never failed to be amazed that he still used that clunky old thing) one day.

"When's Kentarou moving out?" returned Miyako, who was in far too good a mood that day to turn this into an actual argument. "You're just mad because you're outnumbered."

"Not if you count the digimon!" Daisuke pointed out. "Look, having all you girls running around is distracting me from my..."

At that moment, Hikari, having just taken a dip in the spa bath which sadly happened to be on the other side of the house to her bedroom, strolled nonchalantly through the lounge area clad only in a fluffy white towel. Daisuke's eyes tracked her until she disappeared into another hallway.

Only now slightly irritated, Miyako took a look at his computer screen. "Bubble Shooter? Yes, I'm sure you're working very hard."

"I was having a_break_," Daisuke attempted.

Miyako rolled her eyes, smiling. "I'll go talk to Hikari."

"_She_ can stay," he said quickly, making Miyako burst out laughing on her way to Hikari's room.

As she knocked on her best friend's bedroom door and waited for her to answer, Miyako looked over the photos adorning the door. A lot of them were just photos of friends and family spending time together and being silly, but just as many were visually stunning artistic shots of the architecture around the Academy and Uzume College, of Tailmon, of Takeru, and even of random plants. Really, it was a pity Hikari had set her heart on teaching, because fine arts would have _loved_ her. "Hikari, you decent?"

"Yeah, just brushing my hair," came Hikari's voice.

The older girl entered the room and seated herself on Hikari's bed, watching as Hikari brushed. "You've got such lovely hair, you should really grow it out some more."

"I don't know," said Hikari, looking at her own reflection in the mirror, "I've always had short hair. If it was any longer than this I wouldn't know what to do with it."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," Miyako replied in a clear dismissal of the topic at hand. Spotting (and then folding) Hikari's towel on the bed had reminded her why she'd come in. "Dais was just asking me when you two are leaving. You know, you really shouldn't tease him by wandering around in your towel like that." Well, it seemed connected in _her_ mind...

Luckily, Hikari didn't seem to notice, she only pouted. "But it's _fun_, 'yaaakooooo."

"You've been spending too much time around small children, because that was a pretty impressive whine," Miyako assessed her. "But really, it gets his hopes up." Catching a glimpse of a certain photo on Hikari's bed stand, she suddenly came up with another plan of attack. "And think about Takeru! What does _he_ think about you waltzing around half-naked in front of Daisuke like that?"

Hikari started giggling. "Oh, he thinks it's _great_ fun annoying Daisuke. What he can't have and all that. Besides, _he_—" Miyako realized she was talking about Takeru again now— "—knows I wouldn't leave him. Especially not for Daisuke."

Miyako's vague annoyance swelled for some reason she couldn't fathom. "Well, one of these days you're going to get Daisuke's hopes up so high that he'll _fall_."

Setting her brush down on her (well, Miyako's, really) dresser, Hikari raised an eyebrow at Miyako in the mirror. She lost the not-grinning battle, but not decisively enough to not be able to limit the indemnity to a smile. "Miyako, I didn't know you cared!"

Miyako sniffed. "Only because _I'm_ the one who's going to have to pick up the pieces."

Hikari's laugh had a layer of disbelief to it. "Okay, fine, I'll stop. Just for you and your raging crush on him."

"Take that back!" Miyako yelled, seizing one of Hikari's pillows and bashing her upside of the head with it. Hikari only laughed some more, grabbing another pillow and fighting back.

Within a few minutes, Minami was at the door, holding something behind her back. "Do I hear a pillow fight? I'm in!"

-

Ruki had become resigned long ago to being a rather reliable source of income for anyone in Abilene with a bit of spare cash. The digimon trading card game that Ryo had introduced to the west when his cousin Keiko had sent him a starter pack had become an overly popular diversion not just for the players, but for the people who were sick of wasting all of their money at the poker tables. Digimon card matches took a little more finesse to win and a little less luck, and therefore were slightly easier to hedge your bets on. Ruki had taken to the game like her mother to modeling, and everyone in Abilene quickly picked up on the fact that Ruki and Ryo were the ones to put your bets on, Ryo if it was the two of them against each other.

Unfortunately for the Digital Accidents agent, since begging Ruki to teach him how to play the game, Jenrya had become the new target of bets, with anyone and everyone, even Mimi, who usually detested gambling and only let the practice go on in her saloon because of the income the drinks provided, laying bets that he would lose by a ridiculously large margin to _anyone_, including his own little sister. As such, Ruki had to declare her practice matches with him money-free, holding them on top of the bar instead of at the poker tables (most of which Mimi had converted into digimon tables). She didn't usually teach people how to play, but it was a nice change of pace, and having gotten over the whole search warrant episode, she got on pretty well with him, even if he was pretty slow at the game. He didn't appear to be using his gaming idiocy to try and pick her up like most boys did back in the days when she still felt obligated to teach anyone who asked.

Why not? It still annoyed her, but she'd gotten used to it. After all, her mother looking like she did, she couldn't really help it. "Hey, Jenrya?"

Startled from his hand of cards, he looked rather put out. Ruki supposed she'd interrupted him in the middle of trying to work out which card to play next. "Yeah?"

Now that she thought about it, this question sounded really stupid. "This is going to sound ridiculously big-headed of me, but – um – how come you haven't tried hitting on me yet?" Wiping down a table and obviously eavesdropping, Juri burst out laughing. "Seriously. Usually that's one of the main reasons guys ask me to teach them how to play, and they start trying to pick me up right away."

Jenrya looked like he was trying not to laugh as well, but she was grateful to note that he didn't. "Trust me, it's _never_ going to happen." He smirked a bit. "You're not my type."

There was an undertone in his voice hinting at some more subtle meaning that Ruki took a moment to puzzle over before understanding. She winked at him to show she got it. "Right."

Sitting with her back to the door, Ruki didn't notice the newcomers coming in until Mari suddenly waved and called out, "Well, if it isn't Mimi's favorite customer!"

Ruki glanced up to smirk as Mimi blushed furiously, glared at Mari, and tried to regain her composure within the space of three seconds. "Yamato-san, how are you?"

Yamato didn't have time to answer before the man-shaped bundle of energy that called itself Taichi burst in. "This round's on me! Who's up for a digimon card battle, I'm sick of beating Yamato!"

"Let it be shown on the record that this is in fact the first saloon we've visited," Yamato announced, palming his face as he sat at the bar beside Ruki. "Ruki, who's your friend?"

Jenrya's glance up and down Yamato as he held out a hand to shake did not pass by unnoticed for Ruki. He really wasn't kidding about her not being his type, was he? "Jenrya."

"Yamato," the blonde replied, shaking his hand, "Shibumi Cattle Company. You don't seem like the cowboy type, somehow...?"

Mimi looked annoyed as she placed two pints of beer in front of the men (as an employee, Ruki didn't get to drink on the job unless it was a _very _special occasion). Ruki always wondered if Yamato ignored her just to drive her insane or if he genuinely wasn't interested in her.

Jenrya picked up both the beer mug and the unspoken question in Yamato's assessment of him. "No, I actually came out here to drag my sister back home."

"Your sister," said Shuichon, coming in with a plate of temaki, "as she keeps on telling you, has no plans to come back to Zentrum with you, as_Abilene_ is her home now." Putting the plate down, she finally glanced across from Jenrya and noticed Yamato. "Yamato! So Shibumi's back! Where's Takato-oniichan?"

"Dumping his stuff at your place, I think," said Yamato, just as Jenrya raised an eyebrow.

"Takato-oniichan?"

Shuichon rolled her eyes. "He's a friend, okay? He's about your age, and he stays with me when he's in town. _Relax_, I think you'd like him."

He still looked somewhat sullen as he drank some more of the beer. Ruki, on the other hand, had only just realized the significance of Shibumi Cattle Company being in town: Where there was Takato, there was, most likely, Ryo. She resisted the urge to ask Yamato about him too, but Shuichon, perhaps reading this on her face, slyly dropped the question for her. "And Ryo?"

Yamato smirked at Ruki as he answered, _damn him_. "Bath. I'm sure he'll be along soon. Shuichon, I don't suppose I could get an iced yuanyang? I'm not in the mood for Taichi to get me drunk."

"I heard that," called out Taichi from his card battle with Taizou, "another beer for Yamato on my tab!"

Shuichon laughed as she retreated to the kitchen for the yuanyang. "Give it up, Taichi!"

"Never!" Taichi crowed, before being distracted by more people coming into Voler. "Takato, Ryo, about time!"

Instinctively, Ruki sat up a little straighter, but she _refused_ to turn around and look. This left her to stare at Jenrya, instead, who was really taking his time looking this time, slowly looking over the new arrivals. Ruki vaguely wondered whether he was checking out Takato or Ryo. As he glanced at whoever he hadn't started with, his expression suddenly changed to one of confusion.

"Matsuda Takato?"

"Jen!" Takato almost shrieked, bounding over to Ruki's corner of the bar (it was getting a little too crowded for her tastes). "Oh my _god_, what are you doing in Abilene? I haven't seen you since you moved, and that was, what, sixteen, seventeen years ago?"

"Almost eighteen," Jenrya replied, looking a little stunned, "we moved Zentral when Shuichon was born."

Takato suddenly started laughing. "Shuichon as in Shuichon the _cook_? All this time I've been living with her and eating her food and I never clicked!"

Jenrya looked like he was about to say something when he glanced behind Ruki and appeared to change his mind.

"Hello, Wildcat," said Ryo – he just _had_ to stand behind her, didn't he? She also bristled at the old nickname. "Who's this poor sod whose ass you're kicking?"

Once again, Jenrya opened his mouth, but Takato beat him to the punch. "This is Lee Jenrya, he's Shuichon's older brother and he used to live in Westside too and he was my _best friend_ until he moved to Zentrum when we were like six but now he's back!"

"Do you _breathe_?" murmured Yamato.

"From time to time," Takato admitted.

Ryo ignored this exchange, reaching almost possessively over her shoulder to offer Jenrya a hand, which he shook. "Akiyama Ryo. Usually I'd ask if you come here often, but Takato's charming testimonial says you don't. Do you work here, or can I get you a drink?"

Feeling left out, Ruki cleared her throat: _Hello, I'm still here._

"I know you're still here, Ruki," Ryo grinned at her, demonstrating his occasional uncanny ability to read minds as he pulled up another stool, "but experience has taught me not to even _try_ to buy any of you girls a drink."

Jenrya had the oddest little half-smile on his face. "I wouldn't say no to a beer."

"Make that two, on the ice," Ryo decided. "Ruki?"

Rolling her eyes and resisting the urge to make fun of her customers, Ruki got up and retreated behind the bar. She couldn't help but eavesdrop as she grabbed two glasses and went to the keg, though.

"So, Jen—"

"Jenrya," he corrected Ryo quickly. Ruki had noticed that: He only seemed to tolerate the nickname from Terriermon, Shuichon, and now Takato.

There was a smile in Ryo's voice when he went on as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Jen. Are you staying in the wild wild West long?"

"I was wondering the same thing," added Takato.

Shuichon bustled past her to serve Yamato the yuanyang he'd ordered. "Ta, Shuichon," the blonde said.

"As long as it takes," Jenrya replied.

Ruki finished filling one glass and turned the tap on the other one.

"I don't think I want to know," opted Ryo. "But for business purposes we'll assume that's a decent amount of time. Do you have a digimon?"

"A Terriermon," answered Jenrya.

He ignored Takato's envious little "Ooh, Jen, you're so lucky!"

"Why?"

Ryo smiled appreciatively as Ruki dumped his drink in front of him. "Because if you're living in Westside, you're going to need a D-Arc."

"Oh," said Jenrya, sounding bored already, "you're _that_ Ryo. I've already got one."

Seating herself once again, Ruki rather enjoyed the look of shock on Ryo's face. It wasn't one she saw often. "What? How?"

Jenrya unclipped his D-Arc from his belt and placed it on the table for Ryo to examine. "A woman in Zentrum named Donna Eis made it for me. She said something about having pored over the plans for it so many times she'd memorized them and worked out how to make one, even if she didn't design this model herself."

"It doesn't look like yours, Ryo," Takato pointed out, looking at the digivice also. "Isn't it missing the card reader?"

"Good spotting," Ryo murmured, turning it over and studying the digivice. "This Donna, does she know an Ichijouji Ken?"

"There used to be a guy called that at her private investigation agency," Jenrya replied, eyes trained on Ryo where Ruki would have thought he'd be more concerned about his D-Arc (she knew _she_ would be... right? even if it _was_ Ryo), "he kind of... just... vanished about six months ago though."

Nodding his thanks, Ryo passed the D-Arc back to him. "That explains it. I'll throw a card reader onto this for you if you give it to me in a couple of days, I need to go out and get the materials for it first."

"Thanks," said Jenrya, putting his D-Arc back on, "but that explains _what_, exactly?"

Ryo took a sip of his beer. "How you have a D-Arc without having met me first, of course. Most people don't know this, but I didn't design the D-Arc—"

He wasn't kidding, was he? This was news to Ruki, too. And to Takato, judging by the gasp of surprise.

She was getting distracted. "—my... hmm, friend, Osamu did when we were about twelve. He was a bit of a genius. Anyway, he kind of died, so I guess Ken took his blueprints for the D-Arc with him when he moved to Zentrum."

Jenrya almost choked on his drink, prompting Takato to leap up and give him a few good thumps on the back. "Sorry, but: _Osamu_, did you say? And he 'kind of died'?"

Well, Ruki had been a little surprised at how casually Ryo had just tossed that out too, but that was no reason to choke. He was only just starting to look a little awkward about it now. "Yeah, and?"

Jenrya's eyes were – not exactly wide, but certainly focused. "You're _the_ Ryo, aren't you?"

"D-Arc Ryo, cousin to Ito Keiko of the Minami League's Elite Four, yeah," Ryo muttered, shifting in his stool.

"The Milleniumon Bomber," Jenrya added instead.

Huh? Now that she thought about it, she _had_ heard something about that on the news a good ten or so years ago.

Ryo stared into his half-empty glass, but when he spoke, his tone seemed almost purposefully light. "Is _that_ what they were calling me in the media in Zentrum?"

"Some of them, yeah," said Jenrya, eyes calming down but certainly still staring.

"It was ten years ago, let it go," Ryo advised him.

"It'd been the first I'd heard of my hometown in years," Jenrya returned.

Finishing his beer, Ryo stood abruptly, turning to Ruki in a clear change of subject (Jenrya looked somewhat frustrated). "Wildcat, love of my life, I've been ignoring you." Well, it was about time he noticed this fact. Always one for embarrassing theatrics, he flourished into a bow. "Would you do me the honor of accompanying me out back? To the range," he added quickly, "before anyone makes the inevitable sexual references."

"Target practice," Yamato obliged him, perfectly on cue, "is that what you kids call it these days?"

"Who are you calling a kid," Ryo grinned, "I'm older than you. Ruki?"

He used her name. _That_ was what she'd been waiting for. Okay, that, and... "Mimi?"

Her boss winked at her. "Have fun."

"Alright, then," Ruki told Ryo, sweeping her deck into a tidy stack of cards to return to her card holster, "it's not like I have anything better to do. Battle's off, Jenrya."

"Then I suppose you won't mind if I tag along," Jenrya replied, but he seemed to be directing the question more to Ryo.

The older man merely shrugged. "You know what they say, the more the merrier."

Annoyingly (though she'd never admit that she kind of liked it), Ryo oh so casually flung a hand around her shoulder as the three of them took their leave of the saloon. Ruki shook him off, but he only smirked at her, before returning his attentions to Jenrya. Okay, he was new to Ryo, but what was so fascinating about him?

"So you're originally from Westside too. Do you do much shooting?"

Jenrya shook his head. "I'm on the Digital Security Guard, so it _was_ part of the basic police training, but I find if Terriermon's not around my D-Arc tends to be sufficient."

Ryo raised an eyebrow. "So you've still got the energy mechanism, then. What's yours?"

"Wireless Taser," replied Jenrya, earning a whistle from Ryo. "Or handcuffs."

"Kinky," Ryo acknowledged.

"And what's yours, then?" Jenrya asked in return, without blushing. "I know Ruki's already, I've seen it in action."

"What can I say, bar brawls are vicious," Ruki replied as she set up a few cans for them to use as targets.

Ryo's expression was deliberately deadpan. "Whip."

"In your own words," Jenrya smirked, "kinky."

* * *

Notes for this chapter:  
I had a class that was slightly addicted to Bubble Shooter and even made a few attempts to get our teacher into it, which is why the game gets a dishonorable mention here. Supposedly it's worth the Google. 

I decided to adapt the digivice iC's realization feature to a rip off of the Pokeball system, mostly because Agumon looked slightly uncomfortable in there, and I figured it worked with the whole data thing.

Please don't take Miyako's actions to heart. I know nothing about business.

The only reason Kentarou is a better cook than Daisuke is because ramen is all Dais can make.

Temaki is cone-shaped sushi and yuanyang is coffee mixed with tea, popular in Hong Kong.

"The Milleniumon Bomber" is a reference to a _V-Tamer_ crossover special, where Taichi calls Ryo this in the middle of a fistfight. Ryo, on the other hand, calls him the Demon Crusher.


	9. The Love of Your Life

You thought I know nothing about business? I also know nothing about guns. This is ridiculous, my dad has a firearms license.

And I really have no idea exactly why August fifth is a national holiday in this 'verse. The significance of the date should be obvious to you lot, but I can't think of a reason in the _Way Back_ canon.

Anyway, despite the appearance of a couple of merry _Adventure 02_ ships, I like to call this chapter And the Ace Said, Let There be Slash for reasons which will soon become obvious.

* * *

_Written unusually neatly for Taichi on one side of a single sheet of lined paper freeloaded from Ash, neatly folded, and put in an envelope Taichi had been meaning to mail. Subsequently found by Yamato, torn into several tiny pieces, and thrown out at Voler before he could throw it in the mail bag._

Dear Sora,

I have something to tell you, and before I start I'd just like to tell you that I love you and I'm sorry and I hope you'll still give me a chance. I'm a dick. Well, you knew that when you started dating me and you knew that when I hid a ring in your blueberry muffin, but even I didn't know how much of a dick I really was.

Well, I'm not going to beat around the bush, so I'll just come right out (kind of ironic, ne?) and say it: I've been seeing someone else.

There's this guy I work with a lot, and it kind of just... happened. Neither of us ever planned it but we didn't know how to stop. I never meant to hurt you, Sora, I swear.

So I'm done after this season. I'm coming back home to Eastend, to you, and hopefully you'll give me another chance.

I'm so sorry.

Love,

Taichi

-

_Written neatly on an old Requiem Private Investigation Agency letterhead, left on the fridge, pinned in place by a magnet from Digitamamon's Diner._

Alice,

If you forget what to do, don't panic, just look at this list!

Make sure the mainframe is tapping into the Digital Security Guard server. It should do this automatically but if the program hangs or the computer crashes (you know how the Ventana operating system is, I keep meaning to switch to a Pineapple Mac but I'd have to reprogram the entire system to compensate for the new operating system), there's a shortcut on the quick launch bar. Also check it's piggybacking to that proxy server in the Archipelago. Again, it should do this automatically, but better safe than sorry. If the Guard finds out we're using their systems, they may not be so lenient with us.

If a digimon shows up on their sensors, open a window to get into their identification program. Wait to send out a dark ring until after they've identified at least the level. Remember, send a dark ring only if it's adult level or below, if it's anything higher than adult use a dark spiral. Try not to waste dark spirals on lower levels.

Once they're under your control, a new window for that digimon will pop up automatically. We have so many now that I find it easiest to just lead it here (following the streets, try not to let them get in anyone's way, no need to make a mess) and then set the program to survival within boundaries autopilot.

There's a list of the dietary requirements for digimon by family and teeth on the wall behind you.

Good luck, though I'm sure you don't need it. In the extremely unlikely event you have any problems, send Dobermon. I trust you.

Love,

Ken

-

_Scrawled across a Post-It note, folded into triangular quarters, and put in one of Ken's socks when he wasn't looking._

Take care of yourself in the west, okay?

Love,

Alice

-

_Dashed off on a serviette from Voler at the last minute as soon as Taichi discovered his letter was missing._

Dear Sora,

I wrote this letter for you but it's disappeared on me. So I have something to tell you but I guess I'll just talk to you about it when I get home so you can slap me.

This is my last season. It was a good one.

Oh, crap, I'm sorry this is on a napkin and it's so short but I really wanted to make this mail delivery. Sorry.

Love,

Taichi

-

_Written in Fold on a Le Coucher letterhead because Jenrya hadn't planned to stay long and so hadn't brought any Digital Accidents Tactics Squad paper. Mailed almost a week after writing it because he _just_ missed the mail bag._

Hi Dad,

I hope you didn't tell Mom about Shaochung.

I found her, and she's fine, but she's refusing to come home.

What should I do? She has a life out here, she has a job, she has friends, and...

She turns eighteen this year.

I know she'd be much safer in Zentrum and our whole family should be together in the same region at least, but she's happy here, and she's independent. Like Jialin out in Pirenia. And apparently she's been moving around a lot since she left home, I don't really want to uproot her and Lopmon again.

-Jianliang

-

_Illegibly scribbled down in the dark one night, but never rewritten tidily and sent. He may have said some stupid things at the train station on the spur of the moment, bur Masuken knew better than that._

So we actually got called out today, and Hikaru was a bit late so for a while it was just me and Sigma and the digimon, and you know what it'd be like if it was just you and me, we'd probably be able to deal with it almost by the time Hikaru even shows up, but you know what Sigma's like, he has to calculate everything and really, he has a freaking mega level digimon, you'd think he could let himself go once in a while, but no, so when Hikaru showed up he started yelling at him and it was such a _stupid_ argument and it took us practically half an hour to take down a stupid Tailmon that didn't even have its tail ring, and now I can't sleep, and what I'm trying to say is I miss you, Jen, hurry up and come home.

-

_Painstakingly done in calligraphy on expensive stationery and mysteriously delivered to Hikari's school pigeon hole by one Asanuma Nami._

Hikari,

Would you do me the honor of joining me for dinner on campus on August the fourth? RSVP by the usual methods.

Love,

Takeru

-

The phone rang. In the middle of a burst of inspiration on his novel, Takeru ignored it. "Patamon, could you get that?"

Rolling his eyes, the child level digimon flew over to the phone. "Hello?"

"_Hi, Patamon, it's Hikari. May I—_"

Patamon didn't even let her finish the sentence. "Takeru!"

"Who is it?" Takeru demanded, not even looking up.

"Think fast!" Patamon yelled, throwing the phone at his head.

Takeru glanced up just in time for his old basketball instincts to kick in and for him to get his hands up and catch the phone. With a glare at his digimon partner, Takeru put the phone to his ear but continued typing. "Hey."

"_Yes._"

"What?" said Takeru, caught off guard.

There was a smile in her voice. "_It's Hikari. Yes, you idiot._"

But Takeru had to get Satoshi off that stupid Locomon and into the city first! "What?" he repeated at length.

"_You invited me over for the fourth,_" Hikari explained patiently, putting on her teacher voice. "_This is my répondez s'il-vous-plaît, silly. I caught you in the middle of writing, didn't I?_"

"Yeah, you did," Takeru replied, trying to entangle his mind from his plotline.

"_Sorry,_" his girlfriend apologized. "_Shall I leave you alone, then?_"

"Please," he offered. "Sorry."

"_Hey, it's what comes of dating an aspiring novelist,_" she replied – he could almost _hear_ her shrug. "_See you on the fourth, then._"

"Right, see you," said Takeru. She hung up, but it was too late, the inspiration had left him. "Aaaaaaargh!"

-

At any other time in the few years Kentarou had known Daisuke, he would not have called the older boy an emo or an angry drunk. Daisuke was usually an annoyingly overly exuberant drunk who would proceed to challenge everyone within five meters of him to a drinking contest and then drink them all under the table. Unfortunately, tonight of all nights, Daisuke had finally picked his moment to be an emo drunk, staring moodily at everyone from a corner of Miyako's expansive lounge and only leaving his corner to get another drink.

"Cheer up," Kentarou attempted, "you can destroy someone else tomorrow."

Their old in-joke about Daisuke secretly being an evil genius in his spare time didn't just fall flat, it _melted_. "Go away, Kenta'."

"Maybe if you stop being so emo, I will," he offered. "Come on, it's August fifth."

"I've never seen the point of this stupid holiday," Daisuke retorted.

"Where is your sense of national pride?" Kentarou chided him. "At the very least it's a day off school. Three day weekend this year, even. And we still have two days to get over our hangovers."

Ignoring this remark, Daisuke glared at Takeru from across the room (Kentarou was somewhat grateful that the blonde either genuinely didn't notice this development or was choosing to actively pay no attention to it). "Whatever."

And _there_ was the source of Daisuke's angst. Hikari had come home late last night giggling, and the squeals of delight coming from Minami's room later had indicated that Takeru had proposed to her and she had accepted. Personally, Kentarou was of the opinion that Daisuke was trying to brew a storm in a teacup. The way he saw it, Daisuke had never had a chance anyway, so why was he so upset now that Hikari was_certifiably_ off the market?

Of course, Kentarou also realized that if he dared to voice this opinion, Daisuke would probably try to strangle him. Not much of a right hook kind of guy, Daisuke, he went for the jugular.

"Look," he tried again, "this is a great party and you're missing out by having an emo in the corner."

"It's not much different from last year's," returned Daisuke, "except that now _he_—"

He'd better stop him before he went off on another diatribe about how Hikari was too good for Takeru or something. "I wasn't here last year." He hadn't been invited. But now that he lived at Miyako's mansion, he was on the guest list by default.

"August fifth last year was a good August fifth party," Daisuke decided. "For one thing, Hikari wasn't—"

"Forgive me for doing this," Kentarou muttered, walking off. "Miyako?"

The violet-haired girl glanced up from a conversation with Professor Izumi (_god_ it was weird being at a party with one of his friend's lecturers). "Yeah?"

After turning up on her doorstep essentially begging for a place to stay, he really felt bad asking Miyako for _anything_, but this was a special case, and besides, Daisuke was her best friend. "Daisuke's having an emo. Could you please go and talk some sense into him?"

Miyako rolled her eyes. "He's _still_ not over it? Go figure. Koushirou, please excuse me."

"Over there," Kentarou pointed out, then he made an escape to the (spiked, naturally) punch bowl before he could feel obliged to make awkward conversation with Professor Izumi.

-

"Come with me," Miyako ordered, standing over Daisuke like (to Daisuke's mind) Ms. Anderson during a test.

He blinked at her, somewhat confused. "What? Where? And _why_, while I'm at it?"

"Balcony," Miyako said shortly, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him to his feet. "You need some fresh air."

"I do _not_," Daisuke protested futilely. Soon enough, Miyako had managed to drag him outside onto one of the balconies. He made a deliberate show of taking a sniff of the cold, summer's night air. "Okay, I've had air, can I go now?"

To his utter shock, Miyako slapped him across the face. "_Ow!_ 'yako, what the _fuck_ was that for?"

"Because you've been completely _insufferable_ since Hikari got home last night," Miyako tried not to shout, "and now you're being an insufferable emo drunk, and _damnit_, Dais, you're not allowed to be this much of a dick at _my_ party!"

"Well, excuse _me_ for being upset because the love of my life just got _engaged_!" Daisuke retorted.

"And will you _shut up_ about Hikari being the 'love of your life'," she went on, "she's _never_ liked you that way and never _will_ and _now_ she's getting married! Face it, Daisuke, Hikari was never meant for you! Would you stop staring at Hikari and realize that there are _other women_ out there, other women who actually _like_ you?"

Oh _crap_, she'd _really_ put her foot in it now.

Daisuke stared at her. "Like _who_?"

Well, there was nothing else for it, she'd said that much already. Miyako kissed him. After a tense moment in which he didn't respond, she pulled away, and, feeling rather humiliated, moved to make her way back inside.

His voice was low. "'yako, wait."

"What?" Miyako murmured, confused, but not turning around.

Daisuke put a hand on her shoulder and pulled, forcing her to look at him. His brown eyes were unusually serious, before they closed and his lips were on hers.

-

It was kind of depressing for Ruki to think that the happiest August fifth she could vaguely remember had been when she was five. That had been her last August fifth with her father before he walked out of her and her mother's life. They'd gone out to a baseball game at the Coliseum, all three of them, and then to dinner at Digitamamon's Diner. The only specific memory that came to mind was ordering coq au vin rouge off the adults' menu because her favorite dish wasn't on the kids' menu she was handed, but in the photos she looked at when she was older, she looked happy.

Her second happiest August fifth had been last summer. Unusually, she'd gotten off work early, and gone to watch everyone making idiots of themselves at the customary festivities. Ryo had grabbed her with a laugh during the fireworks and kissed her hard, leaving her breathless and, infuriatingly, unable to get him out of her head ever since. It had capped off a summer of shameless flirting on Ryo's part that Ruki had figured was only cursory and as such hadn't responded to, but then that one little kiss suggested it was for real.

That had also been the summer Ryo had taught her how to shoot a pistol, and she'd practiced throughout the off season in the hopes of finally finding something she could beat him at. She hadn't, of course, although with Jenrya around it was somewhat reassuring to have someone who apparently tried just as hard as she did to beat Ryo at _something_ (it was the only explanation she could come up with as to why he was always around when she and Ryo did a bit of target practice, and why he constantly made a conscious effort to get better at the digimon trading card game) but with significantly less effect.

This thought made her smile as she kept on with the late shift (oh, well, she was getting paid for her time and a half) at Voler, practically living at the beer keg to serve up pint after pint. The boys were being surprisingly well-behaved this August fifth; they hadn't broken out into a fight yet. This might possibly have been due to the fact that Mimi, in her usual slackening of the rules come a special occasion, had allowed some of the nymphs du prairie to join Mari 'dancing' on the Friday night stage (though Mari was guarding her pole as jealously as Renamon guarded her inarizushi), to the vast delight of the customers.

All bar one. Takato was sitting at a table near the bar with Juri, who was technically not actually on the job but had gravitated back to the saloon after the fireworks and was still fetching her own (and Takato's) drinks. They looked happy together. Ruki supposed they were the most stable couple out here, but considering the competition, it was an easy win. Juri swore up and down that Wallace was pining after Mimi, who was blatantly pining after Yamato, who either didn't seem to notice (Ruki figured this was giving him too little credit, though) or genuinely didn't really care. Taichi had a girlfriend – no, fiancée out in Eastend who, reportedly, was unimpressed with his move to Westside, declaring it a "misguided attempt to make money off a childhood fantasy", and he'd dejectedly confessed to Ruki over a glass of – well, _something_, it had definitely included vodka – that he was going back to her after this season and not returning to the west. (Then he'd sworn her to secrecy. Hey, what else were bartenders good for, if they couldn't keep your secrets?) Then there was her and Ryo, for whom even she couldn't come up with any words.

"Juri," Takato was saying, "this is going to sound a little weird and also probably really insensitive and I really don't mean it that way, but do you still have your D-Arc?"

The goggle head was right for once, he _did_ sound really insensitive. Her friend was silent for a moment before answering. "It's completely useless now that... now that he's gone, but I couldn't bring myself to just throw it away. Why?"

"I just wanted to try something," the brunette replied. "I don't suppose I could borrow it?"

Intrigued, Ruki stopped in the middle of polishing a glass to watch Juri for her reaction. She hesitated some more, then eventually, said, "I guess so. Do you want it right now?"

"That'd be great," Takato beamed. "And we can stop by my place too; I want to pick something up."

As the pair left, Mari swung off the top of the bar and held out her hand for a drink. "_Someone's_ going to get some tonight," she murmured, with a grin and a glance at Juri and Takato's retreating backs. "And I'm not just talking about Angel, Jess, Gloria, Lucia, and Alice, either."

"Say please," returned Ruki, referring to her expectation of a drink.

Mari pouted for a moment, then suddenly her pout flashed into a grin. An _evil_ one, to Ruki's occasionally overactive imagination. "Can I work this into my show?"

"_No,_" Ruki protested emphatically, but Mari ignored her, instead turning to her audience.

"Ruki's being _mean_ and not giving me a drink..."

Ruki sighed as the chorus of boos and moans started up. Oh, _great_, another faux lesbian act. Sometimes (if not often enough to actually quit), she hated her job.

-

There was always something about August fifth that made Jenrya, for no apparent reason, loosen up a bit. It was one of the few times in the year when he would actually accept an alcoholic drink (or five), though being in the west for August fifth was a first. Back at home in Zentrum, he definitely would have gotten drunk (last year's work party and the ensuing not quite relationship with Masuken attested to that), but he would never have accepted a challenge to a drinking game. It had seemed harmless enough when Ryo had first proposed it: Shoot the can, and if you miss, you take a shot. He'd always been a pretty decent shot for someone on the Guard, even if unlike Yoshino (the only member of the Alpha team who wasn't, however unofficially, trained in hand-to-hand combat) or anyone on the n00b squad – he really had to stop listening to Hikaru and Masaru – the Beta team, he didn't actually carry a gun, so he'd been reasonably confident about his chances at staying somewhat sober (by both Western and August fifth standards). And besides, Ryo may have been possibly the best shot in the West but he had _definitely_ been more drunk than Jenrya was when he'd originally made up the rules.

What Jenrya hadn't taken into account was how much the alcohol would dull his aim. He'd never actually shot anything while drunk before, and it had been a while since he'd shot with something other than his D-Arc. Ryo had banned the use of his D-Arc's Taser function, saying something about how if Jenrya could use his D-Arc, then _he_ should be allowed to as well, and that just wouldn't be fair. Apparently Ryo was a master with his whip. In a non-kinky way, he had hastened to add.

"I can't believe you're on the police force," Ryo remarked, laughing as Jenrya missed another can. He passed him the refilled shot glass, pilfered from Voler when the girls hadn't been looking. "You're a lousy shot."

"It's not like I work _drunk_," Jenrya grumbled, throwing the absinthe down his throat before he could taste it. "And I'm on the Guard, we don't run around chasing criminals as such. Just digimon."

Ryo took the pistol from his hand, aimed, and fired. The bullet just grazed the edge of the can, enough to make it wobble but not enough for him to escape the alcohol. "What a pitiful excuse."

Jenrya seized the absinthe bottle, poured some more into the glass, and passed it back to Ryo, also reclaiming the gun. It was Ryo's pistol, so he would have thought the cowboy would have been more familiar with it and had an advantage, but familiarity was doing about as much for him as the lack thereof did for Jenrya. "What, so just because you work on a range I should expect you to be a rodeo rider or something?"

"I do _great_ at rodeo," Ryo insisted, knocking back a shot.

He lined up the sights of the pistol and shot, piercing the side of the can. _Yes!_ "I'm sure."

Ryo set up another can, grumbling. "Lucky shot."

"Don't deride luck," Jenrya advised, grinning as Ryo missed the shot and swore. "You know, I think you're trying to compensate for something with the whole pistol thing."

The older man's blue eyes lightened as he smirked. "Do you now?"

"I do," he replied mildly, tipping some more absinthe into the shot glass. "Phallic symbol, much? And you always seem so upset when you miss. You're taking it too personally."

Chuckling, Ryo accepted the glass and drank. "I am not compensating for _anything_. Think fast."

Jenrya _just_ managed to catch the tossed gun. "_Over_compensating, then."

"Believe what you like," grinned Ryo, "but you're still not going to make this shot."

Infuriatingly, he was right. Jenrya sighed and held out a hand for the inevitable shot, which Ryo placed in his hand with a beam. "I'm right _every_ time, Lee, you _really_ should have learned by now."

"Shut up," Jenrya replied eloquently, knocking the shot down.

"Every time," Ryo repeated, taking the gun from his hand and firing off a bullet. Trying to, anyway. The pistol merely clicked cheerfully at him, indicating an empty chamber. "Damnit."

"Every time, huh?" Jenrya grinned.

"Shut up," Ryo concurred. The older man reached into one of the pockets of his cargo pants. After going through three pockets and coming up with some bits of copper wiring (appropriated from Junpei's scraps, Jenrya suspected), a small glowing _something_ that he vaguely explained was what was left of a data packet, a worn piece of what looked like photographic paper that Ryo refused to elaborate on or show him, a small and unmarked black notebook ("You keep a diary?" Jenrya teased, to a rather disappointing lack of response), and, strangely enough, a key to what looked like a vehicle (Jenrya was utterly mystified – who rode anything but horses in Westside?), he finally came up with a handful of bullets, enough to make a round, which he promptly dropped, scattering the ammo on the ground. "_Shit_."

It was still summer, so the already dark sky was a sure sign of just how late it was getting. For a while now, they'd been shooting only going off the reflections on the can from the light of Voler. Muttering about having left his glasses at Le Coucher, Jenrya got to his hands and knees to help Ryo hunt for the ammunition.

He managed to pick up three and was reaching for another one when he bumped heads with Ryo. "Ouch," he muttered over Ryo's expressive, "_Fuck_."

They leaned back, laughing. For whatever reason, once they stopped laughing, they didn't start back at their task again, merely stared at each other for a moment.

Jenrya moved first, slipping into Ryo's personal space and taking a moment to enjoy the unfamiliar look of confusion on his face before pressing his lips to Ryo's. He would have done it earlier but there was always Ruki and the silent understanding that the two were involved somehow, but right now Ruki was working inside and the alcohol meant that he just didn't care.

To his vague surprise, Ryo kissed him back, parting his lips in an invitation that Jenrya accepted. After a moment of getting to know each other's kissing styles, Jenrya decided to up the ante a bit, draping a hand over Ryo's shoulder before pushing him into his back, never breaking the kiss.

"Ow," Ryo muttered, a cackle in his voice.

"What?" Jenrya replied, politely leaving out the 'now' he had been thinking.

Ryo snickered beneath him. "A couple of bullets on the ground that I missed. Digivice. All this crap in my back pockets."

"You're an idiot," Jenrya felt obliged to say, then he straddled Ryo's hips and kissed him again. It felt odd to let Ryo touch him, to allow this man he'd barely known a month to slide his vest off his shoulders and ghost his hands under his shirt and up his back. All the same, several minutes of purely physical pleasure passed before either of them spoke again. "But you're definitely not overcompensating."

"Told you," panted Ryo, his blue eyes bright in the reflection of light from the saloon.

This was getting a too little awkward for the backyard of Voler. "I have a room, at Le Coucher."

"I know you do," Ryo returned, with a smirk.

"Are you always this obtuse?" Jenrya couldn't help asking.

Ryo shrugged, a rather impressive feat considering he was pinned to the ground. "I pick my moments."

Jenrya snorted as he stood, gesturing for Ryo to follow him to the boarding house. "I don't suppose you happen to have protection in those magic pockets of yours."

"Magic pockets," Ryo mused, rifling through a pocket and eventually producing a sealed condom packet, "I like it."

Jenrya smiled.

-

"I know this idea sounds crazy," Takato said, looking at his sketchbook rather than at his girlfriend, "but I was watching Ryo slash a card through his D-Arc one day and I thought, what if you slashed something _other_ than a card?"

"Definitely crazy," Juri agreed, similarly studying the D-Arc. She hadn't so much as glanced at her old digivice for a few years now. It was too painful to look at the now defunct device after having lost Leomon.

"And I've been doing these doodles while on the trail," Takato continued, "kind of making up my own digimon, if you will."

Why hadn't the D-Arc gathered any dust in the years since she'd thrown it into that drawer? Juri looked back at Takato instead. "Takato?"

Takato glanced up at her, impending story interrupted. "Yeah?"

"Just get on with it."

"Okay," Takato replied, steeling himself. "Here goes nothing..."

He slid the pages about – Juri struggled to read his writing upside down – Guilmon – through the card reader on the D-Arc. The A5 pages looked a bit comical going through something designed for tiny playing cards.

Nothing happened.

"Oh well," sighed Takato, "it was worth a shot."

"Cheer up," Juri replied. "So what if your little experiment didn't work? It's August fifth. Be happy."

"True," Takato granted her, smiling. Juri kissed him.

Unnoticed by either of them, a flash of light shot from the D-Arc and onto the sketchbook next to it.


	10. Mucking Around with a Digivice

Ikuto and Falcomon's dialogue and Cyberdramon's introduction are in italics to indicate they're speaking in the language of the Northern Territories (yes, the same language Izumi was dropping words in), which, in case you're interested, is Te Reo Maori. (Yes, I was lazy enough to just shorten the name within this 'verse.) Native language of New Zealand, that country with all the sheep. Ryo's self-introduction is a real pepeha, too, except I'm told that in today's society you'd generally say your tribe is your family name.

A hoeroa is a throwing club traditionally made out of whalebone, but considering Ikuto lives nowhere near the sea, it's probably something else. Use your imaginations.

Anyway, onwards with the obligatory morning after chapter and the sudden appearance of plot. Yes, this wasn't meant to just be a romantic drama.

* * *

Ikuto's eyes widened as Mama aimed an Absolute Zero Punch at him. Dodging, he grabbed at Falcomon. "_Mama, it's me, Ikuto! Don't you recognize me?_" Why was she trying to hurt him? It had all started after she'd come back early from gathering food with that black ring on her leg!

"_It's no use, Ikuto, she doesn't know you any more!_" Falcomon replied. "_Hold onto me!_"

Falcomon took to the skies. At any other time, Ikuto would have loved flying with him, but right now was too terrifying, too confusing. He clung onto his digimon partner as Falcomon rolled over in the air to avoid the storm of Mama's Snow Fight.

But what was that black thing coming at them? It looked like... "_Falcomon, look out! It's like one of those black rings that got Mama!_"

Diving low to the ground, Falcomon skimmed the top of the coarse grasses he'd seen those things that said 'moo' eating. "_Maybe we can lose it._"

Ikuto risked a glance over his shoulder. "_Look, if it gets you you'll end up like Mama. Land. I have an idea._"

"_I trust you, Ikuto,_" Falcomon replied, gliding lower and hitting the ground.

He rolled off Falcomon and faced the _thing_. With a cry, he hurled his hoeroa at the ring, shrieking in triumph when his aim proved as true as it usually did and the bone connected hard with the blackness. A small fracture appeared in the ring. It crackled, and then fell to the ground in pieces.

"_You did it!_" Falcomon cawed.

"_Hopefully there won't be any more,_" Ikuto answered, cautious. Spotting a shadow on the ground, he glanced up, stiffening.

There was something _big_ coming. Something big and dark and – a digimon. Of course. He hadn't seen one like it before, shaped like he was but with a gray thing on its face and shoulders and sharp things coming out of its forearms and four dark red wings.

"Good, you dealt with it," it – no, it sounded like a he – said. Ikuto blinked up at him, not understanding. "Oh, _another_ human? The west just keeps on getting smaller."

"_Stay back!_" Ikuto yelled.

"Great," the huge digimon sighed. "Another Northerner. Er, what was that phrase the girl used again... _Hello, my mountain is _Infinity Mountain_, my river is the _Dark_ River, my name is Cyberdramon._"

Falcomon nodded at Ikuto. "_He doesn't have a dark ring like Mama did, and he used a bit of our language. I think he's safe to talk to._"

"_Okay,_" Ikuto replied, before turning back to Cyberdramon and introducing himself in one breath. "_My mountain is Aleph, my river is Sneyato, my mother is Yukidarumon, my brother,_" he indicated Falcomon,"_is Falcomon, I am Ikuto._"

"Oh my god," Cyberdramon muttered in that language Ikuto couldn't understand, "it's not just a Northerner, it's a Northerner with an identity crisis. No wonder he looks so weird, dressed like a wannabe digimon or something. No, wait, your _mother_ is Yukidarumon? The one with the dark ring?"

Having lost him after '_mother_' and 'Yukidarumon', Ikuto looked completely blank. The digimon sighed again and made a circular shape with his right hand, then touched his leg. Ikuto suddenly gasped and nodded.

"Goodie," Cyberdramon said. "Come with me."

Another blank look. Cyberdramon gestured towards himself, then flew off.

"_I think he wants us to go with him,_" said Falcomon.

"_Do you think it's safe?_" Ikuto asked.

"_Hopefully,_" his digimon partner replied. "_He seemed to know about the black rings._"

Ikuto's resolve strengthened. "_We have to save Mama._" Once again, he climbed onto Falcomon's back. "_Follow him._"

-

The state this place had been in when Kentarou had stumbled into bed at four o'clock that morning – catastrophic – he would have expected it to be a lot worse than it was: Almost spotless. "Whoa," he said eloquently, "what happened here? I swear it looked like a bomb had gone off last night. Well, this morning."

"Hikari happened," Minami replied from the kitchen, "she came in this morning as soon as she woke up and cleaned up, it was pretty amazing. Then she went straight back to bed, not that I blame her or anything. Pancakes?"

"Kyu!" Bun enthused, diving off his shoulder and bounding along into the kitchen with his surprisingly strong legs.

Kentarou laughed. "I guess that's pancakes for Bun as well."

Minami smiled as his digimon bounced up and down by her feet, then bent down to feed him a bit of pancake. "He's so cute!"

Chewing on the pancake, Bun wagged his tail happily.

"We get that a lot," sighed Kentarou, flicking his bangs out of his eyes as he followed his partner into the kitchen. He had really ought to see about getting a haircut. "Do you know if we have strawberries?"

"Nah, Miyako's allergic," Minami returned, "she comes out in hives and gets all itchy. It's not pretty. But I put blueberries in the pancake mix."

"A girl after my own heart," Kentarou smiled, rifling through the newly clean contents of the dishwasher.

Placing a fresh pancake on the plate he offered, Minami laughed. "I would have just said your sweet tooth."

"Whatever," Kentarou said through a mouthful of pancake, "this is _fantastic_. Whatever you graduated in, you should go become a chef."

"Now you're just exaggerating," the girl retorted, crouching down to give Bun some more food. "Speaking of chefs, have you seen Daisuke this morning? I know he likes these too..."

"Nah, haven't seen him," Kentarou replied, "does that mean I can have his share?"

"No, silly," Minami replied. Looking in the crockery cupboard, she found a saucer, put a particularly small and Bun-sized pancake on top, and slid the saucer across the counter, before picking up the digimon and placing him gently onto a stool. "There, now you can eat with us."

"Mokyu!" Bun approved.

Taking a seat of her own, Minami smiled at the little digimon. "I wish _I_ had a digimon."

"Er," said Kentarou, unsure of how to respond to this.

Minami shook her head slightly, as if clearing it. "Sorry, I was thinking aloud. Why'd you name your digimon Bun?"

For a moment, Kentarou merely considered the question, and who it was coming from. Apparently she'd lost a dog too, and that was why she was living here. But at the end of the day, it still hurt too much to talk about it. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Oh, that's okay," she replied, making a stellar effort at keeping the disappointment out of her voice. "Maple syrup?"

-

"Anna, Anna, Anna," Takato called out, running into the blonde woman's house without so much waiting for her to officially welcome him in. Well, it wasn't_his_ fault no one in Abilene left their doors locked except the businesses. "Where's Ryo?"

Glancing up from her morning sudoku puzzle, Anna merely blinked at him for a moment before the math faded from her mind and the meaning of his question set in. "I haven't seen him since last night when he went out back with Jenrya. Why?"

"Nothing," Takato said quickly. The food on the table had distracted him. "May I...?"

Anna sighed. "Go for it. You know where the plates are." Eagerly, Takato went to her cupboard and took a plate back to the table. "If you're still interested in looking for Ryo, wouldn't it be better to take a sandwich...?"

Disappointed, Takato slumped. "Oh yeah." He piled a poached egg and a few rashers of bacon onto a piece of bread, slapped another piece of bread on top of it, and ran back out of the house. "I'll be back for more!"

For a moment, Anna stared after him, somewhat bewildered, and then she cracked up laughing.

-

Waking up with a hangover was one thing, something that Miyako was reassuringly familiar with. Waking up naked with a hangover in a bed that wasn't her own was another, not quite as familiar an experience but certainly something that had happened to her before. Waking up naked with a hangover and your best friend lying on top of you, also distinctly naked, took things to a completely new level of awkwardness.

"What happened?" groaned Daisuke.

"You were having an emo in the corner," Miyako recalled, "and Kentarou told me off to go tell _you_ off, and then..."

Everything from last night suddenly hit her like a Locomon.

"Oh my _god_," Miyako shrieked, startling to a sitting position. Her sudden movement disrupted Daisuke's position too, and as they'd been on the edge of the bed, Daisuke was unfortunate enough to fall off. "_What_ was that crunching sound?"

Daisuke didn't bother trying to cover himself, he just reached beneath him and came up with her glasses. Both lenses were cracked. "Shit."

Having one's glasses broken, Miyako decided, was the worst way in the _world_ to be bashed over the head with the fact that life was not a romance movie. It was not only not a romance movie, it was _nothing_ like a romance movie, and now she needed new glasses to boot.

"I'm so sorry," babbled Daisuke, "I know you can afford like fifty new pairs but I'll buy you a replacement, _before_ I pay last month's rent, do you have anything else to wear, I know you really liked those frames, I am _so _sorry—"

How depressingly like him to avoid the real issue completely. Although it was nice of him to offer to replace them when she was the one who had kicked him out of his own bed in the first place. "It's okay, Daisuke, I have spare contacts."

"That's good," he blurted out, then fell silent. _That_ wasn't like him.

"Did you use a—?" demanded Miyako, unwilling to voice her concerns.

Daisuke's eyes were wide and panicked. "What for, nothing happened, we didn't do anything!"

The urge to slap him was rising, but that had been how this had all started, and besides, Miyako didn't want to get out of bed. "We did _each other_, Dais," she snarled, "your old 'when in doubt, deny, deny, deny' philosophy isn't going to work here!"

"I'm sure we did, I always keep a few in my bedside table, okay, here's an open packet on the floor, we must have used it!" Daisuke chattered nervously, waving around the empty condom packet. "Aren't there pills for that sort of thing?"

Miyako grit her teeth together in an effort to stay civil. "Yes, there are, but I would much rather _not_ have to go down to the pharmacist this morning."

Her best friend – well, apparently more than that now – balled his hands into fists in his concern. "I didn't mean for this to happen, I swear."

"Neither did I," Miyako muttered, "it just _happened_." She sighs heavily. "Dais, _please_, put some clothes on, give me a moment, and_fuck off_."

"This is _my_ room," Daisuke pointed out.

Miyako threw her – alright, technically Daisuke's – pillow at him. "This is my_house_!"

"Point taken," Daisuke muttered, scrambling for a shirt.

-

In the saddle in the main street of Abilene, Takato paused as he took a bite of his impromptu sandwich to examine his new D-Arc. The others had said you could track digimon and other digivices with it, and he'd actually seen Ryo using this feature once to find Yamato and Taichi. Something about flashing dots... Well, in a town like this one, there were several. That had to be Mimi's in the approximate direction of Voler, and the dots scattered around the boundary of the town were probably the digimon on patrol. Shuichon wasn't up yet, so that was her at home, that was probably Chichos at Acheter, there were Taichi and Yamato...

Easily the area with the most dots clustered together was Le Coucher. Takato dismissed most of them as Wallace, his two digimon partners, Shuichon's Lopmon, Junpei (apparently he had a digivice, though he'd never seen a digimon around him), Jen, and _Jen's_ Terriermon (Takato still couldn't believe Jen had a digimon partner). That still left one unaccounted for. Maybe that was Ryo?

But who was that dot on the outskirts of town and apparently coming towards him? Takato looked up into the sun, winced, and put his goggles on. Okay, that definitely wasn't a human, and the shape looked kind of familiar, and Ema was starting to get a little antsy... _Oh!_

"Hey, big guy," he greeted Cyberdramon. Somehow Ryo's partner managed to look rather unimpressed at the nickname, despite Takato not being able to see his eyes. Oops. Better move on before he got too offended. "Have you seen Ryo?"

"I was hoping you had," the perfect level digimon replied evenly.

Takato frowned. "Oh, okay." Perking up, he hit upon an idea. "Wanna look for him together?"

Cyberdramon stiffened. "I'm sure he'd much rather I didn't. But do tell me when you find him."

"Sure," Takato smiled. "Hey, you've got a good sense of smell, right?" Cyberdramon's jaw dropped, probably trying to tell him, 'are you kidding me?' Takato barged on, regardless. "Could you sniff him out? There's too many digimon and people with digivices in this town for the tracking system to be of much use."

Ryo's partner digimon stared at his digivice for a moment (at least, he _thought_ he was staring at the digivice, maybe he was looking at his saddlebags) before giving the air an obligatory sniff. "That way," he pointed with a claw.

About the direction of Le Coucher. Hey, he was right! "Thanks!"

Without waiting for a response – Cyberdramon really freaked him out sometimes – Takato dug in his heels and turned Ema to face Le Coucher before urging his horse into a trot. There was no need to gallop the fifty or so meters to the boarding house. Within a couple of minutes, he was dismounting and striding into the lobby. He'd been right about Wallace and the two Lopmon and the two Terriermon, too! "Hey, Wallace!"

"Takato!" Wallace greeted him with a smile which quickly turned teasing. "I thought you _had_ a house."

The brunette laughed. "Yeah, I'm not checking in, you dork, I'm looking for someone. Have you seen Ryo?"

"Doesn't _he_ have a house too?" Wallace pointed out.

"Jen's room," said one of the Terriermon, Takato presumed he was Jen's. "But I wouldn't just go barging in there if I were you..."

"Thanks, Terriermon," Takato beamed, "what's the room number?"

Terriermon rolled his eyes and glided over to the log book. That was nice, he was learning his way around the boarding house. "Two point nine, right upstairs._Seriously_, I really don't recommend going in..."

"Thanks again!" Takato replied, making his way to and up the stairs. Honestly, what was Terriermon so worried about? Ryo and Jen must have been having a sleepover! What a great idea! Takato never did that for fun any more, it was always just all about the job and sleeping on the ground in a tent that didn't always keep off the rain if there was a particularly bad storm. Man, Takato hated storms.

Counting down the rooms, Takato barely knocked on the door of room 2.9 before bounding inside. "Hi, guys, I was mucking around with Juri's digivice and—"

He stopped to stare. Jen. And Ryo. In bed together. With no clothes on. His childhood friend and his work partner who was like the older brother he'd never had. Together. In bed. Naked. "_Guh??_"

"'Mucking around with a digivice', is _that_ what they call it these days?" Ryo said mildly. "Keep your voice down, I didn't want to wake him."

"What about Ruki?" Takato blurted out. She and Ryo were together, weren't they? But Ryo was in bed with Jen, and the room smelt of sex and— Was Ryo_gay_? But _what about Ruki_?

For the first time, Ryo looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Er. I really don't know."

Speechless, Takato didn't notice that he dropped his digivice on his way out of the room.

-

"Minami," Kentarou informed Hikari as she entered the kitchen, looking tired but considerably less hungover (apparently she didn't drink, but then again, Derek the exchange student _had_ spiked the punch), "makes the best pancakes in the world."

"I wouldn't go that far," Minami smiled modestly.

"I know," Hikari replied, "I've had them. Can I have a few?" Helpfully, Minami got up from the kitchen counter to find Hikari a plate for her pancakes, before sliding the plate and a knife and fork to her usual place at the counter. "Thanks, 'nami."

"Is Miyako up yet?" Minami asked. "We haven't seen her _or_ Daisuke this morning."

Stricken by inspiration, Kentarou looked between the two girls. "You don't suppose...?"

"Oh no they _didn't_," Hikari gasped.

"I bet they did!" Kentarou declared.

"Kyu?" asked Bun, looking up from his breakfast.

"When you're older," Kentarou replied.

His digimon partner shrugged (impressive feat with his tiny arms) and went back to his pancake.

"That's so sweet!" cooed Minami. "They're best friends; they're perfect for each other!"

"They're best friends," Hikari repeated, looking horrorstruck, "it would have been completely awkward!"

"Believe me," Daisuke announced darkly, from the doorway to the lounge, "you have no idea. Pancakes, _please_."

-

Where there was that overly skittish horse – what was its name again? Ema? – there was probably the goggle head. Cyberdramon waited patiently (for him, anyway) outside Le Coucher and caught the little goggle head as he ran out of the front door. "Did you find him?"

"Did I _ever_," gasped Matsuda. "Did _you_ know he was gay? Because I didn't!"

Cyberdramon shifted uneasily as Monodramon's consciousness fought for just a little more control within him. [_Keep your perverted fantasies to yourself, there's something more important we need to talk to him about!_

Actually, he had a point, but Cyberdramon found himself distracted again. "Where's that digivice you were waving around?"

Involuntarily, he twitched. That was a sure sign Ryo was coming...

"You dropped this," Ryo said in the doorway, and he tossed Matsuda the D-Arc before he could answer. "Is it yours? How'd you get it?" Then his gaze fell on Cyberdramon, and on Ikuto and Falcomon beside him. "Cyberdramon, who are your friends?"

Oh, he _would_ use that word just to annoy him, wouldn't he? Cyberdramon decided against pointing out the term. "This is Ikuto, and I'm assuming his partner Falcomon. They don't speak Servian."

"More Northerners!" Matsuda said, excited despite himself.

"Apparently he was raised by a Yukidarumon or something," Cyberdramon continued, examining his claws, "but I saw her get hit by a dark ring and she went berserk, tried to attack these two. There was another ring going for Falcomon but the boy destroyed it."

"This can't be good," Ryo stated the obvious. "Takato, tell me about the digivice later, okay? I have to deal with this."

"Er, okay," said Matsuda, looking like he wanted to say something else.

"And don't go running off and telling anyone about me and Jen," Ryo added as an afterthought.

Beneath the mask, Cyberdramon blinked. Ryo and— that _Zentral_ boy? Makino, he tolerated (barely), but _Lee_?

"Fine," replied Matsuda.

"Takato, that includes Ruki," Ryo warned.

The goggle head looked disappointed. "Alright." Then his stomach grumbled, and he blushed instead. "I'll be at Anna's if you need me."

"Cool," Ryo said absently, already turning to go back into the boarding house. "Oh, do you have a digimon?"

Matsuda was startled. "Er, no, but there's a digitama on the screen."

"Tell me when it hatches," Ryo ordered, then he paused and glanced at Cyberdramon. "You're not going to fit through the doorway."

"Do I _have_ to," Cyberdramon almost whined.

Ryo rolled his eyes. "_Yes_."

Cyberdramon sighed and grudgingly devolved to Monodramon. There went his mental dominance, to be replaced with that _child_ speaking for them.

Their partner looked over Ikuto and Falcomon, hesitating for a moment before saying, "Come inside."

"He told you," said Monodramon, "they don't speak Servian."

"How'd you get them this far, then?" Ryo returned.

Monodramon gestured at them again, and after a moment, the Northerners (so he presumed) followed them into the boarding house lobby. Both he and Ryo took seats; the other two partners looked confused for a moment before sitting on the coffee table.

"Well, that's close enough, I guess," Ryo murmured, before regaining his composure. "Er. Izumi taught us how to do this properly, let's see if I remember it... Nah, I'll just do the shorter version without grandparents. Um. Kia ora koutou?" Ikuto looked startled, then nodded. Encouraged, Ryo went on. "Ko tauiwi taku iwi. Ko Infinity taku maunga, ko Dark taku awa. Ko Nibori taku papa, ko Isidora taku mama, ko Ryo taku ignoa. No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa."

"You speak Te Reo?" the Marshall boy asked with interest, glancing behind him as he started up the stairs followed by his Terriermon and Lopmon and the other digimon he seemed to have acquired (oh, the Lee boy's and his little sister's digimon, Milleniumon remembered).

"Not really, I just picked up a bit from a Northern girl I know," Ryo replied without looking up, "_please_ don't distract me? This is important."

Monodramon glanced up to see the Marshall boy wave a hand in assent and disappear up the stairs, his little digimon army trooping after them.

Digimon army...? Maybe_that_ was why the Yukidarumon Ikuto called 'Mama' and several other digimon they'd seen lately had those dark rings on their bodies. He was careful to mentally phrase it in the subjunctive.

[_It's not a bad idea,_ conceded Monodramon.

Ryo stared at Ikuto for a moment, before saying something that _sounded_ like a question. Possibly 'what happened'. Monodramon gave up on following the conversation.

-

"So how was it," Kentarou hazarded a few hours after breakfast.

Daisuke looked confused for a moment, then suddenly caught onto his meaning and grinned. "Amazing."

* * *

**A Who's Who of Non-Show or Obscure Characters from the Last Five Chapters**, for people who were curious but too lazy to look it up:

Chapter 6  
Doug is a random enemy Tamer in the Playstation game _Digimon World 2_.  
Tatum is an American digidestined partnered with Airdramon in _Adventure 02_.  
Yuka is Ikuto's little sister in _Digimon Data Squad/Savers_, while Misuzu and Kenji are his parents.

Chapter 7  
Babel Enterprises is indeed owned by the Monster Maker of _Tamers_.  
Tadashi and Taizou are two of Takato's classmates in _Tamers_. Why, yes, I am throwing a lot of Tamers into Westside.  
Ryo's Elite cousin is, in one of my weirder freaks of crossovers, Keiko, a Dark Spore child with a Yukimi Botamon in _Adventure 02_.

Chapter 8  
'Professor' Kondoo is from the _Digimon Next_ manga.  
The person complaining about the digidex was going to be Shuichon until I realized this wouldn't work with the timeline. So I think I'll make it Karen Bates from _Digimon World 2_ instead. You know, like it matters.

Chapter 9  
The Alice Ken writes to finally _is_ Alice McCoy of _Tamers_. Honestly, there are way too many Alices in the video games.  
The names Mari spouts off as girls who are "getting some" are random enemy Tamers from _Digimon World 3_, except for Angel, who's another Australian from _Adventure 02_. This one's one of the two token girls, the brunette with the Gizamon.


	11. We All Know He's Special Needs

"Breakfast," announced Ryo, bursting into Voler with Monodramon, Ikuto, and Falcomon in tow, "and then I need anyone with a digimon that can go to at _least_ perfect level to come out for a ride with me!"

"What's up?" Taichi asked curiously.

Ryo took a seat at a table, gesturing for Ikuto and Falcomon to do the same. "Wild digimon in the outback are turning up with dark rings and going berserk."

"Oh, you mean the same as usual, but with extra jewelry?" quipped Yamato.

Rolling his eyes, Ryo murmured to Shuichon for four plates of chao fen before elaborating. "They're hurting their _friends_. This kid here," he indicated Ikuto, "grew up with a Yukidarumon, right, but once she turned up with a dark ring she started attacking him and Falcomon."

Mimi dropped a glass. Only a quick spin from Ruki saved it. "That's so horrible, how could anyone do such a thing?"

"Mil—" Ryo started, before stopping himself. "Monodramon thinks someone might be trying to make a digimon army."

"What _for_?" Ruki inquired despite herself.

"Whatever it is, you can bet it can't be good," Ryo sighed. "Who's with me? We're not taking horses out to investigate a digimon problem, and I'd prefer you have a digimon who's reasonably agile. We don't want anyone else getting taken over by those rings. Ruki, I could really use you and Kyuubimon."

"Of course we're in," she replied, bristling at the thought that Ryo thought for even a second that she wouldn't come with him.

"Garurumon and Kyuubimon work well together," Yamato offered.

"If Yamato and Gabumon are in, me and Agumon are too," declared Taichi.

Shuichon dumped a couple of dishes onto the table. "Lopmon can warp digivolve to Antiramon."

"You haven't got any ultimate level digimon," Mari observed, "Rose and I will come along to watch your backs."

"If you've got Rose and Mari, you don't need me and Palmon," Mimi said quietly.

Mari frowned. "Don't say that, Mimi."

"No, it's okay," Mimi replied, with an obviously fake smile, "someone has to look after the saloon."

The two women hugged. In the resulting silence, Junpei raised a hand. "Um, can I come?"

Ryo and Monodramon stared. "Er, I know you have a digivice, but... No offense, but do you even _have_ a digimon?"

Junpei fidgeted, then stood, walking to the part of the saloon that was always kept clear for dancing. "Not really, but..." With one hand, he retrieved his unusual digivice from his pocket, before looking at his other hand for a moment. To Ryo's eyes, a ring of code materialized around his hand (everyone else merely saw a band of light), which he then appeared to slash through the digivice. "_Execute: Spirit Evolution!_"

A flash of light blinded everyone for a moment. When it cleared, a beetle-like digimon was standing in Junpei's place.

"W-w-what?" Monodramon stuttered, dropping a chopstick load of chao fen.

Ikuto chattered incomprehensibly, pointing at the digimon and shooting Ryo an urgent look. For the nth time that morning, Ryo wished he actually knew Te Reo properly.

The digimon scratched the back of his head, a motion that was unmistakably Junpei's, as was his voice, even if it was a little lower and – cracklier? "Um, it's me, guys."

Impressed, Taichi let out a wolf whistle. Yamato, on the other hand, merely lifted his D-Arc in Junpei's direction. "Blitzmon. Hybrid level? That's weird, must be broken."

"Those things don't break, trust me." Ryo informed him. "Hybrid level, huh? Junpei, I don't suppose you're from the Territories?"

"Nah, both my parents are Zentral," Blitzmon replied, puzzled. "But I was born in the Koromon Village. Why?"

"That explains it," Ryo concluded. "I know this girl from the Territories, and she can Spirit Evolve like you can."

"I've always thought I was a freak," Blitzmon muttered.

"You're not," the older man reassured him. "And I could really use you on the team."

At that moment, Jenrya strolled into the saloon, yawning. Seeing Ryo surrounded by people, he blinked politely. "Oh, what's this, an adventure? Can I come? Once I've had breakfast."

"If Terriermon can reach at least perfect level, sure," Ryo replied without blinking.

Jenrya shook his head. "Furthest he can go is Turuiemon."

Ryo barely paused in picking up another helping of chao fen. "You do know that's a Lopmon digivolution, right?"

"Oh, I know," Jenrya shrugged.

"Your partner's weird," Ryo informed him, before tossing his chopsticks down onto his empty plate and standing. "Right, let's go!"

"Who died and left_you_ goggles?" Jenrya asked mildly.

Sensitive about his own goggles and who'd died and left him his, Taichi raised an eyebrow. "Do I even _want_ to know?"

"Sorry, Guard in joke," the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad agent replied. "The leader, if self-proclaimed leader, of every Accidents field team has goggles. No idea why, but that's the way it seems to be. Tsurugi on the training squad, Tatum on the n00b squad – I mean, the Beta team, Hikaru for Omega..." He paused, suddenly remembering someone. "Oh, wait, except for Masaru, but we all know he's special needs."

-

At the Digital Security Guard headquarters in Cora, with his fist just over an inch from Tohma's face, Masaru suddenly sneezed. This only succeeded in making the blonde burst out laughing. "Tonma..." Masaru snapped, punching him anyway.

-

"That's very nice, Jenrya," said Ryo, keen to get going, "but we're out of here."

Jenrya frowned, grabbing Ryo by the arm as he moved to leave. "Hey, um, Ryo." The older man shot him a questioning look. "Be careful out there, alright?"

Also on her way out, Ruki paused, vaguely irritated. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing," Jenrya replied loftily, turning quickly and making his way to the bar. "Mimi, you know I love this place, but what does a guy have to do around here to get some breakfast, go into Shuichon's kitchen and make it himself?"

Mimi watched Shuichon leave the saloon with the rest of the group, then snapped out of her reverie, suddenly realizing she was without her usual cook. Well, _she_ was a decent cook when she had to be... "Well, what'll it be? I can't promise anything fancy and Fold like your sister but I can make a decent tamagoyaki..."

For a moment, all Jenrya could do was stare. "...Mimi, you _cook_?"

"Occasionally!" she defended herself.

-

"That is _so_ cool!" Kenta resisted the urge to squeal.

"I know, right?" Takato beamed. "I wonder how long it will take to hatch."

Hirokazu swiped the digivice off the table, threw it up into the air, and caught it, trying to look unimpressed as he examined it. "I don't get it, what's the big deal?"

Takato hissed protectively and grabbed his D-Arc from Hirokazu's clutches. "Don't just throw it around like that, you'll break it!" Even he wasn't sure whether he was referring to the digivice or to the egg pulsing on its screen.

"'What's the big deal'?" Kenta repeated, incredulous. "'kazu, you idiot, this means Takato will get his own digimon! He'll be just like Ryo-san!"

"The Milleniumon Bomber," recited Takato, thinking back on the name Jen had used when he'd suddenly realized exactly who Ryo was. "That's so cool. I wonder if I'll have a title like that some day."

"What's wrong with 'chumly'?" Hirokazu objected.

Kenta sighed. "You just _don't get it_."

-

Watching the digimon coming on this mission gathering in the center of the town, something suddenly occurred to Ryo, making him turn to Ikuto. "Um, can your Falcomon digivolve? Only you don't seem to have a digivice..."

Ikuto gave him an increasingly more familiar look of confusion.

Ryo sighed, and waved his hand in the air to get the group's attention. "Can I get a demonstration of digivolving for this kid, please?"

"Happy to oblige," Yamato said graciously. "Shall we all share a card so we don't waste trees?"

"We live in the _west_, Yamato," Gabumon pointed out, "ride for ten minutes out of town and you can't sneeze without spitting on a tree."

The blonde rolled his eyes and threw a card before everyone had their digivices ready. "Card slash." Taichi, Ruki, and Ryo managed to get their D-Arcs up in time for the card to pass through their readers, and to complete the circle, Yamato grabbed the card out of the air and slashed it through his own digivice. "Digivolution activate!"

"Monodramon, digivolve to..."

"Can I use that again?" Ryo asked, before Monodramon had even finished digivolving to Strike Dramon.

Yamato rolled his eyes and passed the card back to him. "You and your special needs."

"Agumon, digivolve to... Greymon!"

"Renamon, digivolve to... Kyuubimon!"

"Gabumon, digivolve to... Garurumon!"

"Strike Dramon, digivolve to... Cyberdramon! That feels better," Cyberdramon growled.

Ikuto waved his arms around, and babbled at Falcomon, who nodded, was enveloped in a flash of light, and became a taller bird digimon somewhat resembling an ostrich.

"Cool!" remarked Mari, holding up her digivice 01. "Peckmon, adult level with a vaccine attribute. A bird type digimon from the wind guardian family, his attacks are Spiral Claw, Thousand Beak, and Kunai Feathers."

"Thanks for sharing," Ruki replied dryly.

Shuichon laughed. "Lopmon, it's your turn!"

"Lopmon, warp digivolve to... Antiramon!"

"Let's ride," Ryo ordered. "Ruki, Kyuubimon, d'you mind?"

"Of course not," Ruki said quickly. Ryo swung up onto Kyuubimon's back behind her.

"Yamaaaaa," Taichi whined, pouting. Yamato rolled his eyes and offered the brunette a hand to get onto Garurumon's back too.

"I suppose this means I get to take the sky road," Mari didn't quite complain.

Blitzmon glanced at her – it was hard to tell if he was smiling – and tilted his head to the side. "At least you won't be alone. Not on my watch."

"Oh, Junpei," Mari smiled, a hint of flirtatiousness in the glint of her teeth. Rose sighed and palmed her face.

"Hey, Ikuto," Shuichon said, running up to the boy on his digimon, "can I ride with you? Only Antiramon's not exactly the ideal shape for it."

Ikuto looked utterly blank.

"Give it up, Shuichon, he doesn't speak Servian," Ryo sighed.

"Leave me alone, I can handle this," Shuichon argued, before pointing at Ryo and Ruki, pointing at herself, and then pointing at Peckmon. Ikuto blinked at her for a moment, before suddenly nodding and chattering at Peckmon to crouch down for her to get on.

"Well, color me impressed," Ryo blinked.

"Told you," Shuichon smirked. "I'm good with boys."

"Are we quite done here?" Ryo asked, in an effort to save face.

"Yeah, let's go already," Cyberdramon added.

Ryo glanced to the flyers. "Cyberdramon, Rose, Junpei, would you like to do the honors?"

In response, Rose merely took to the air, Cyberdramon soon overtaking her and Blitzmon catching up. Junpei glanced below him and watched Garurumon, Kyuubimon, and Peckmon follow beneath them, with Antiramon and Greymon at the back of the party. Only once he saw the party get underway did he allow himself to glance back at Mari. "Hey, Mari?"

"Hmm?" the blonde girl inquired.

"You look familiar," Junpei told her, feeling like an idiot as he so often did around her. "Your smile reminded me of—"

"I always remind people of..." Mari sighed, before looking at him directly. "Who is she?"

Junpei struggled for a moment, before realizing nothing – or, perhaps more accurately, no_ one_ – was coming to him. "You look familiar," he insisted.

"Like a model?" Rose suggested, looking like she was trying and obviously failing to hide a smirk.

"Mostly when she smiles," Junpei admitted, then looked back at Mari. "But I'm sure I've seen you somewhere else..."

For a moment, Mari looked a little thoughtful, and she didn't quite meet his eyes when she spoke again. "Do you go online a lot? I have a website, apparently it's pretty popular even though I don't really update it all that often any more because I live out here. Rosemari dot org?"

"Yes!" Junpei gasped, suddenly remembering the photos he'd looked at just the night before coming out to Westside. Then he remembered the other kind of photos Mari had on her site. Flustered, he stared determinedly at what he figured was Ruki's head (who else had red hair and would be riding Kyuubimon?). "Just for the cosplay."

"I believe you," the net idol replied, a completely _dis_believing smirk in her voice.

"Okay, fine," he said quickly, thanking whatever deity was listening that under the mask of Blitzmon, she couldn't see his blush. "Oh my god," Junpei muttered to himself (or so he thought), "I've seen you without your clothes on."

Mari snorted. "It's a living."

Junpei allowed himself to look over Mari, just to compare Mari in the flesh to Rosemari the net idol. Something was missing... "I didn't recognize you without the dog collar."

On the ground, Ruki clung to Kyuubimon's fur, feeling only somewhat reassured by the feel of Ryo's arms around her waist. Something still bothered her, and it wasn't about this sudden mission, either, but she tried to ignore it. "So how was your August fifth, Ryo? It's nice to see you and Jenrya didn't blow each others heads off."

Ryo gave a bit of a snort at the word 'blow'. Weird. "Yeah, we were so drunk last night it's a miracle neither of us woke up dead this morning."

The redhead laughed. "You make no sense," she informed him.

"But my nonsense is charming and you like it," Ryo replied, grinning into the back of her neck.

"And you're modest, too," Ruki continued, rolling her eyes with a smile.

Behind them, Taichi was quiet on the back of Garurumon.

"You're being awfully quiet this morning, Taichi," Yamato observed, "this isn't like you."

"I was just thinking," Taichi started.

"Did it hurt?" Garurumon put in helpfully.

Yamato tugged on Garurumon's fur, making the adult level digimon get the picture without even having to say anything, but he said it anyway. "Shut up."

"I'm going home at the end of this season, Yama," Taichi said, just loudly enough to be heard over Garurumon's feet falling heavily onto the ground.

"Yeah, okay, of course you are," Yamato said automatically, not wanting to believe what he'd read in Taichi's letter to Sora, "and then you're coming back again next spring."

"No, Yama," his best friend – well, more than that, really – replied softly, "I'm going home for good. Now, I want you to take care of Zeromaru for me."

"What for," the blonde replied, still in denial, "you'll be here to look after him yourself!"

"Your digimon's really cool," Shuichon informed Ikuto, knowing full well he couldn't understand a word she was saying. "Thanks for letting me ride him with you."

Ikuto smiled as the girl with the maroon hair talked to him, even though he couldn't understand a word she was saying. "_Your digimon's really cool._"

"Oh yeah," Shuichon suddenly remembered, "we've never been introduced, have we? I'm Shaochung." She paused to contemplate. "Only, like, if you can't understand Servian, then you must be from the Territories, right? Folder's too far away for you to just have ended up here by accident. Takato-niichan taught me a little Te Reo, let's see if I still remember it. Um, here goes..." She started reciting her introduction... speech... thing (she'd forgotten the word Takato had used for it). "_My tribe is the outsiders. My mountain is Login Mountain, my river is the Belt. My family is Li, my father is Jiangyu, my mother is Mayumi, my oldest sister is Jialin, my elder brother is Lianjie, my brother is Jianliang, my name is Shaochung._"

"_Well done, Shaochung!_" Ikuto complimented her. "_Your name's not like Ryo's or Cyberdramon's, why is that? Oh, I should tell you who I am too. My mountain is Aleph, my river is Sneyato, my mother is Yukidarumon, my brother is Falcomon, my name is Ikuto._"

"Ikuto, huh?" Shuichon mused. The back of his head bobbed up and down a bit in a nod. "Cool. Oh, you're probably wondering why my name sounds kinda different to everyone else's. Most people just call me Shuichon, that's the Servian pronunciation, but because Dad's from Folder we've got Fold names."

"_I love how we're having a conversation knowing full well that neither of us have any idea what the other is saying,_" Ikuto said.

"Heads up," Cyberdramon called, as an enormous and – familiar-looking? shadow passed above them, before landing in front of Kyuubimon. Somehow, the digimon looked just like Garurumon, albeit a lighter, greener shade of blue.

"What the?" Yamato demanded.

Taichi was the first to scan it. "Gururumon; I am not making this up, Yamato! Adult level, vaccine attribute, from the nightmare soldier family. His attacks are Killer Bite and—"

"_Chaos Fire!_" the Gururumon called, pointing his snout skywards.

"Rose, Mari, look out!" Blitzmon yelled.

The ultimate level digimon darted out of the way just in time. "Mari, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," her partner replied, "could you put me down on the ground, though, if we're going to have a fire fight?"

Rose obeyed, setting Mari gently down beside Ikuto, Shuichon, and Peckmon before turning back to the Gururumon. "You tried to hurt Mari. You're going—"

"And look out again!" Blitzmon yelled, as another, green digimon suddenly flew at Kyuubimon. Before Ruki or Ryo could react, Kyuubimon leapt sideways, dodging the random encounter digimon. "I've seen one of those before, it was attacking my friend's house in Ahora! That's Snimon, an adult level digimon with a vaccine attribute. A virus buster, its attacks are Shadow Sickle, Sharp Edge, and Body Blow."

"Nicely done, Junpei," Ryo called up to him, "does that Spirit of yours have a digimon analyzer built in or something?"

"Nah," Blitzmon shrugged, "I just eavesdropped on the Guard when one of their field teams came in."

"Can we take a walk down memory lane later, we've got bigger fish to fry!" Ruki pointed out. "And there's another one coming. Cyberdramon!"

Cyberdramon snarled as a shadow came at him and was about to attack when—

"Cyberdramon, that's just Izumi!" Ryo pointed out. "Remember, I told you about how she can Spirit Evolve into Fairymon or Shutumon? This is Shutumon, her beast form."

"_Wind of Pain!_" Shutumon snarled, forcing Cyberdramon to land heavily by Kyuubimon.

"You were saying?" the perfect level digimon said dryly.

Before Ryo could even think about wasting time by screaming something along the lines of 'Izumi, it's me, Ryo, don't you recognize me', Kyuubimon stated the obvious. "Friend or not, she has something on her ankle. Is that one of the dark rings that Ryo mentioned, Cyberdramon?"

"It looks a little different, more of a spiral than a ring," Cyberdramon returned. "That Snimon and Gururumon have the standard dark rings, though."

Ryo gasped. "Wasn't there a guy in her tribe, what was his name, oh, Hiro, who had a Gabumon as a partner? And I'm sure someone else had a Gizamon... Whoever's doing this got to Rangi!"

"What's Rangi?" Yamato demanded.

"A tribe who's way out of the Territories," Ryo replied, "and Izumi – that's Shutumon at the moment – is their chief!"

"Crap," Mari accurately assessed.

"Crap is right," Taichi agreed. "Okay, let's see if destroying the rings does anything. Ryo, you take Ikuto and see if the two of you can find the rest of the tribe, they're probably upset with the loss of their leader and their digimon, and hopefully Ikuto can talk to them for you. We'll handle things here."

"Thanks, Taichi," Ryo said gratefully, dismounting Kyuubimon and making his way to Peckmon. As a bit of an afterthought, he tossed over his shoulder, "Cyberdramon, are you coming?"

"I'd rather stay here for the carnage," his partner replied, without a trace of a smile.

He rolled his eyes. "Everyone, remember that these are people's partners too, and Shutumon's a girl just like Junpei can turn into Blitzmon. Don't cause them any unnecessary pain."

"Just a little?" Cyberdramon attempted.

"Oh, just go for a hunt in Fossil Canyon after this or something," Ryo sighed. "Ikuto, I, er..."

Shuichon slid gracefully off the bird digimon, smiling. "I'll handle this. Ikuto, can Ryo ride Peckmon somewhere with you?" She accompanied her request with gestures: First at Ryo, then at Peckmon, then a bit of a reenactment of her riding, then she pointed at Ryo again and acted as if she was looking for something, before 'finding' it and pointing, and making the 'riding' motion again. Ikuto looked confused for a moment, then suddenly nodded and offered Ryo a hand.

"Okay, I'll admit it, Shuichon," Ryo said, taking Ikuto's hand as a boost up and onto the ostrich digimon's back, "you have a gift."

The youngest girl only smirked in reply.

"Get out of here, Ryo!" Taichi yelled.

"That way," Ryo told Ikuto, tapping him on the shoulder and pointing northwest. After some talking to Peckmon, the three sped off.

"Now it's time for business!" Yamato grinned. "Garurumon?"

"The Gururumon's mine," his partner growled. "_Fox Fire!_"

* * *

No, of course I didn't cut it there to avoid having to write a battle scene! 

And yes, I adore _RENT_, if you were wondering about Junpei and Mari's conversation. She does say in the manga that she '[does this net idol thing' so I took things to their logical conclusion...

Oh, and sorry about the MIA-ness of this fic. As you may recall I was writing this for NaNoWriMo, and somewhere around chapter fourteen, I _won_. Wordily writing the same fic for thirty days was pretty taxing, so I've been having a break since then. I'll keep uploading what I have ready this month but probably won't write anything new on this until about January. Give the _Way Back_ batteries time to recharge.

A question: Who's reading this? I know there's a core group of about seventeen-odd who are at least clicking on it. And what do you like or not like about this fic? Look, I'll even resort to bribery: If you review saying what you like and/or don't like, you get to name any Chosen, Tamer, etc. in the Digimon canon and I'll tell you what they're up to. And I do use the term 'name' loosely _and_ mean 'any', you could ask for a named enemy Tamer from one of the games or even 'that (descriptive) kid with the (whatever)mon in (country)'. Of the 237 named characters I have on record only 66 of those are in my "oh give me a home" pile, so odds are I'll probably be able to tell you.

Wow, that was pretty shameless even for me.


	12. On a First Name Basis

Alas, my attempts at bribery failed. However, it gives me great pleasure to note that Starshone went and drew the Omega team (accept no substitutes), possibly trying to bribe _me_ to write. The link is in my profile.

Anxious about things in the west? Sorry, not in this chapter. I suddenly realized some of my favorites weren't getting any love, and then this total n00b shows up and goes, "hai thar Ace, I'm in ur fic, annoying ur Savers." And I'm just like, "great." What _could_ I say, I was behind.

* * *

It was a good thing Miyako didn't have quite the same sleeping patterns as Daisuke, as that, along with the fact that Miyako was retired at the age of twenty-three and Daisuke still went to school, made it a lot easier to avoid him even though they lived in the same house. With a sigh as she passed his bedroom, Miyako made her way to the lounge. Hikari had left muffins on the warming tray again; she tended to bake at odd hours. Miyako took one and had a bite – oh, white chocolate and raspberry – while she waited for her laptop to boot up. 

Before she could type in her password at the login screen, however, her cellphone rang. Geeze, it was a bit early for this, wasn't it? Miyako fished it out of a pot plant (Chibimon had a penchant for hiding everyone's possessions in odd places when he got sick of watching TV) and answered it without checking who it was. "Hello?"

"_Miyako, thank god you're up,_" Donna said, sounding somewhat breathless – possibly calling her while going up the stairs or something, she was somewhat inclined to multitasking, "_can you turn on your PC? I need to use your database._"

"Again?" Miyako asked, gingerly balancing her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she went to turn the PC on like Donna had asked, leaving the muffin behind.

"_Again,_" her friend sighed. "_Persistent hacker, stupid company, and your database is better for the mainland than the League's._"

The violet-haired girl pushed the button on her PC, but didn't bother to turn on the monitor. Donna had her own. "You'd think a government funded agency would know better by now, but no. I've changed my password, by the way, 'prodigious', all small letters, ones for the I and a zero for the O."

"_You've been hanging around Koushirou too much,_" Donna teased her, a smile in her voice. "_Thanks._"

"I do expect a cut out of your pay," retorted Miyako, grinning. "Have fun with the Guard."

"_I'll try,_" sighed Donna. "_See you._"

"Bye!"

Slipping her phone into her pocket – best to keep it on her person in case Chibimon got bored again today – Miyako returned to the lounge to see Daisuke skim reading the newspaper. Oh, _crap_.

They looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment before Daisuke got up the courage to offer, "Muffin? They're white chocolate and raspberry."

"I started one already," Miyako replied, pointing out the not quite half-eaten muffin sitting by her neglected laptop, "but thanks anyway."

Seating herself at the counter, she tried to concentrate on logging in and checking her e-mail like she usually did, but she was distracted. She could _feel_ Daisuke's gaze on her. "What," she said eventually, "do I have muffin in my hair or something?"

"No," Daisuke said quickly, "you look fine."

"What is it, then?" demanded Miyako.

Daisuke gave her an odd look for a moment before turning back to his paper. "It's nothing."

"Right," she replied, completely unconvinced.

"Actually, it's just that—" Daisuke started, before falling silent again.

"It's just that _what_?" Miyako almost exploded.

He sighed. Miyako took the opportunity to have some more of Hikari's delicious muffin, but before she could swallow her mouthful, Daisuke stood, walked over to where she was sitting, and kissed her. "This isn't fair," she tried to say into his mouth, "this is disgusting, I have muffin in my mouth, you haven't brushed your teeth yet, _I_ haven't brushed my teeth yet, this isn't representative," before just giving up and giving in.

Eventually, he let her go, and stared at her with a rather wonderful smile, made especially wonderful after seeing his moping frown for the day after Hikari came home engaged to Takeru and then the resulting worried looks when he thought she wasn't looking and the looks of sheer panic when he knew she was. "Miyako, swallow the muffin, _please_."

"Hey, _you_ kissed _me_," Miyako objected, grinning as she swallowed. "You really should have known better than to kiss a girl who was having her breakfast."

-

It was a fairly slow morning – actually, more like a fairly slow _week_ – at the Requiem Private Investigation Agency. People just weren't going missing or cheating on each other enough. Playing Bubble Shooter on what was meant to be her work computer, Kim sighed, and considered just seeing what Yuu was up to. At her side, Kosaburo frowned at his own work laptop. Despite his confidence in himself to begin with, he hadn't been having any more luck with finding Ken – the Ichijouji case, Kim corrected herself in her head, must stay impersonal with private investigation – than she and Donna had. It didn't help that they'd never taken a DDNA sample from Wormmon, so they could find him the same way Donna had just managed to find that Shuichon girl she'd been after for a year.

Completely out of the blue, the phone rang. Both Kim and Kosaburo – and, upon further inspection, their various digimon – jumped, but Kosaburo's partner, a Piyomon, was the first to react constructively. "I'll get it!"

"No, don't!" Wizardmon protested in vain, as the bird digimon launched from the computer chair he'd been spinning on, the counter-force driving the chair backwards and into Ogremon, knocking him over. Piyomon, on the other hand, actually managed to get as far as getting a wing to the phone, before somehow landing so badly that he tripped over and knocked the phone out of its cradle, sending it flying.

A bit of a dive out of her seat from Kim saved the phone before it hit the ground, and Kim impressed herself by managing to not sound too breathless (or so she thought) when she answered it. "Hello, you've reached the Requiem Private Investigation Agency, this is Kim Eis speaking. How can I help you?"

"_Is this a bad time?_" the woman on the other end of the line asked.

Kim shot Piyomon a dirty look as he launched into a rant on how it wasn't his fault. "No, not at all."

"_You sounded a little breathless,_" the caller pointed out, "_but okay. I'm looking for someone, and the police aren't helping._"

"Here at the Requiem, we practically specialize in finding missing persons," Kim informed her in her usual spin, pointedly not mentioning that one of their own was a missing person. "One of our investigators, Donna, just recently found a girl who'd been missing, presumed Taming if not dead for two years."

Her potential customer was silent for a moment before answering. "_Yeah, weird thing is, it's the other way around for me. I've been looking for someone in the Islands for months now, there's no sign of him._"

"This isn't a dating agency," Kim warned. Kosaburo laughed, but sadly, it had happened before.

Now the caller's voice was practically steel. "_He's my brother._"

"Okay, that's an entirely different story," Kim smiled. "Why don't you come on into the office and we can get started on your case for you? And can I get a name?"

"_Shitou,_" the woman replied, "_Shitou Midori. But call me Kite._"

-

"I can't believe the Mouse is at it _again_," Donna sighed, back at the Digital Security Guard headquarters. "Right, there go a couple of Missimon in Wahia. They're only baby ii level digimon, not even old enough to have an attribute or family yet, but their Missile Crash attacks can do a lot of damage if they actually manages to connect with their target."

"_Baby iis?_" Masaru scoffed over the room-wide intercom. "_Piece of cake. Agumon and I can take them on! We don't even need back up! See you around, Tonma!_"

"_Aniki, wait for me!_" Agumon called after him.

There was a sigh in the background, and Tohma yelling increasingly quieter as he presumably left the room, "_Masaru, you idiot! They might be babies but they're baby _missiles_! You're going to get yourself blown up!_"

"_This is the worst,_" Yoshino sighed, taking Masaru's old spot by the actual microphone. "_Alpha team, headed out, and I'm taking a car._"

"_That's fine, Yoshino,_" Captain Satsuma replied over his own radio. "_Best of luck, though I'm sure you won't need it._"

"_No, just Masaru,_" Yoshino replied. "_Over and out._"

Donna watched her tracer and identification program intently, to the vast admiration of Megumi. "Have you ever considered working here? I'm not the boss or anything, but I'm sure Hypnos would love to have you!"

"Or just a duplicate of your program," Reika pointed out. "You haven't been hacked once, have you?"

"I have a good firewall," Donna replied, blushing, "and the program itself is well-encrypted."

"That's what we thought about our system," the other Megumi sighed, "and now even our database is down."

"Have you considered rewriting it?" suggested Donna. "This is the second time in as many months that it's been hacked, and by the same person, too. It might be time for another programming language."

Her phone went off before she could propose one. "Your butt's vibrating," said Megumi unnecessarily, pointing. "Not that I was looking or anything..."

Cursing the general lack of pockets in both her clothes and the bags she used to lug her alternate tracer system around when it was needed elsewhere, Donna stood to retrieve her phone from her back pocket and flipped it open. Her sister was calling her, go figure. With a sigh, she picked up the call. "What is it, Kim? Whatever it is, I'm sure you and Kosaburo can handle it, I'm a little busy."

"Sorry," Kim answered, not really sounding it, "but I was just thinking: What do you think Ken would look like with spiky hair?"

Donna tried to imagine her old friend from high school with a sudden fondness for hair gel. Unbidden, a memory of that first newscast of the self-declared Digimon Kaiser floated to the forefront of her memory, along with Kim repeatedly saying, '_The Kaiser looks familiar, Donna. Does he look familiar to you?_' She blinked. "The Kaiser?"

"_That's what I was thinking,_" her sister replied.

"Well, spare me the 'I told you so' and tell Kosaburo," Donna told her. "I just thought of something. I'll talk to you at home or whatever later, okay?"

"_Okay, cool,_" Kim said, "_Sorry to disturb you at work, I know you're disturbed enough already. Bye!_"

She'd already hung up by the time it sunk in that her remark about being 'disturbed enough already' had in fact been an insult, but Donna blamed her slowness on the fact that she had other things on her mind. Quickly, she turned to Reika. "Reika, could you patch me through to the Alpha team's comm. devices?"

"Sure, I'm on it," the head technician replied, typing something on a keyboard, "what for?"

The secondary speakers for the remote communication headsets crackled into life in time for them to hear Tohma roaring, "_Masaru, you _idiot_! You can't just punch a _missile!"

"_I punched out a twenty foot chicken once, why not a baby missile?_" Masaru objected.

It seemed neither of the men had noticed that their communicators were on. It was a shame; Donna had rather enjoyed talking to Tohma the last time she'd worked here. As she had the last time she'd stepped in at the Digital Security Guard, Donna decided to appeal to Yoshino as a relative, if pessimistic beacon of sanity. "Yoshi, come in. This is Donna at the home base."

"Headquarters," Miki corrected her.

Donna opted to ignore this interruption. "Tell me, do either of the Missimon have those dark rings on them yet?"

Megumi – both Megumis actually – gasped. Apart from that, as well as Tohma yelling at Masaru some more, there was a moment of tense silence before Yoshino replied, "_No, they don't._"

Donna's tracer program flashed on her screen. "_There are two new ones!_" Tohma gasped, before she could point it out. "_There's a couple of Bombmon now!_"

"_Bombmon, huh?_" replied Masaru. "_So that means we can just hit them with a Baby Flame or two and make them explode, right?_"

"Sure," Donna interrupted dryly, "if you want to blow up a brothel or two."

"_We can't have that,_" Masaru said quickly.

Tohma sighed, but it sounded more like he was trying (and failing miserably) to hold back a laugh. "_They're baby i level digimon, no attribute, no family, doesn't have an actual attack but they scare enemies with their—_"

"_Bachi Bachi _Bacchin!" they heard over the communicators.

"_ARGH!_" Masaru shrieked in a rather undignified manner.

"_Like I said,_" Tohma offered, again sounding like he was restraining himself from laughing. "_They digivolve fast, so it'd be best if we take them out first or else we'll have _four_ Missimon running around. Well, flying. Gaomon?_"

"_Yes, Maste—_"

Donna reached over to Reika's computer and clicked to cut the connection, then turned to the regular Hypnos staff. "Call in Yamaki, I've got news and I'd rather tell him in person."

Reika turned a dial and touched a button on her communicator without looking at it. "Mitsuo, come in. It's Reika. Donna's worked something out and she'd like to tell you in person."

"You two are on a first name basis?" asked Donna, raising an eyebrow.

Blushing faintly, Reika turned away. "Yes, I think so. Alright." She turned her communicator off. "He's coming down. Is it what I think it is?"

"That depends on what you think it is," Donna replied evenly. Reika was smart, she'd give her that, but she wasn't overly fond of her. Something about her relationship with Yamaki rubbed her the wrong way.

For that matter, Yamaki rubbed her the wrong way too, especially his habit of turning up_ anywhere_ in the Digital Security Guard headquarters ridiculously quickly, and not looking the slightest bit out of breath, either. "Eis." He greeted her, seemingly as a perfunctory act. "What have you found out?"

Donna coolly met his shaded eyes. What kind of idiot wore sunglasses inside anyway, especially in an organization as dimly lit as Hypnos? "The Kaiser's been using your systems too, so now that it's down, he's not sending any dark rings or anything."

"That bastard!" Yamaki grimaced. "He's using _our_ technology to do _our_ job!"

"If you rewrite the program and for god's sake get another firewall," Donna replied, "you can prevent both the Mouse from hacking in and the Kaiser from using your system. I know you guys don't like the Kaiser stealing your business."

"That was supposed to be private, we never released a statement either way on that," the overseer of Hypnos remarked, "how did you know?"

"A little Birdramon told me," Donna shrugged. "Now, do you want _me_ to work out the new system, or do you have someone else in the company in mind?"

Megumi leaned over to whisper in her ear. "Actually, Yamaki worked out all the technological systems we have in place."

The man himself gave no notice of having heard her, or of being offended by the suggestion. "Actually, I have just the man in mind." Expecting him to nominate himself, Donna was rather surprised when he called for, "Kagura?"

A technician she hadn't seen before practically ran up and, Donna was amused to see, had to restrain himself from saluting. "Yes, sir?"

"You said in your interview you have some expertise in programming," Yamaki stated.

"That's right, sir," the man Yamaki had called Kagura (Donna assumed it was his surname, Yamaki never seemed to use any other form of address) replied. "Before coming here I specialized in a few of the leading pioneer programming languages."

"Use one of them and rewrite the system," replied Yamaki. "Work with Norstein once the Alpha team gets back in, and when you've finished, have him call me on his communicator and I'll come down so you can explain it to me."

"Oh, I look forward to it, sir," Kagura smiled. There was something weird in that expression that didn't quite fit his words, but she wasn't on active duty as a private investigator here, so Donna dismissed the thought.

"Reika," Yamaki continued, "as a temporary measure, so we don't have to keep on relying on Eis' work – not that it's not stellar, I assure you," he added, with a passing glance at her, "you and Suzuki work on patching the damage the little Mouse did and getting the systems back online, and upgrade the firewall out of the Hypnos budget; you know the bank account number. And while you're at it, block whatever IP address the Kaiser's been using to hack into Hypnos. Onodera and Kurosaki, see if you can trace the hacker. Hopefully he won't have used _my_ IP address this time. Shirakawa..." For a moment, he looked somewhat put out. Perhaps he didn't quite know her area of expertise. "Help out Eis," he eventually settled for, before stalking out of the Hypnos control room.

"You heard him," Reika ordered, "everyone move!"

The gossip in the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad was that Reika could drive Hypnos as hard as Yamaki. Reika, some random technician who was presumably the Suzuki man Yamaki had been referring to, Megumi, and Miki all made their way out of the control room to other computer labs with haste, soon leaving Donna, the other Megumi, and Kagura as the only inhabitants of the room.

Seemingly for lack of anything better to do while he waited for the Alpha team to come back to headquarters, Kagura held out a hand to Donna. "Ms. Eis? I'm Kagura Tsubasa."

"A pleasure, I'm sure," she replied demurely. "Have you been working for the Guard long? Only I didn't see you around here last time the system went under."

"I only started here a couple of weeks ago," Tsubasa shrugged.

It suddenly struck Donna that the safety of the entire city was being put into the hands of – well, Tohma had grown up from a child prodigy to a world-renowned genius (what he was doing wasting his time on a Digital Accidents Tactics Squad, she had never managed to work out), but this guy was, for all intents and purposes, a complete and utter newbie to the Digital Security Guard. With a glance at her computer to make sure nothing else was coming through, she went to her bag and rooted around in her wallet before coming up with her Requiem Private Investigation Agency business card and handing it to him. "If you and Tohma run into any problems with the new system or getting it online, call me. I know it says I'm a private investigator, but—"

"That's just your day job?" grinned Tsubasa, pocketing the card.

"Oh, no, it can be a night time job as well," Donna sighed.

"Sorry," interrupted Megumi, who, upon turning to look at her, was fidgeting with the bow in her uniform, "but is there anything I can actually do to help, or would I just get in your way?"

Donna considered the offer. She felt bad for doing this, but... "Coffee?"

"That's the one thing I can do," the technician suddenly beamed. "I can't program or hack or anything to save myself, but I make a damn good coffee. That's probably why I still have this job, actually; that, and I've been here practically since the Guard and Hypnos and Digital Accidents were founded. Any special requests?"

Faintly wondering how well equipped the Hypnos staff kitchen was (she hadn't been in last time she'd subbed in here), Donna decided to go for broke. "Moccachino latte, double shot expresso, whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles on top."

"And a tall black?" Tsubasa put in.

Megumi smirked. "He only said 'help out Eis', Tsubasa, not you. Get your own coffee. You, on the other hand," she added, turning to Donna, "your order's coming right up! Oh, and do you mind if I bring in my digimon? He gets bored."

"Sure," Donna shrugged, "I work around digimon all the time. My sister has four, and our new employee has a partner so clumsy he's practically the equivalent of four anyway."

Tsubasa sighed as Megumi made her exit, giggling. "I honestly think she's wasted in a place like this. She should be working at a café or something."

The private investigator opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the crackle of the secondary speakers again. "_This is Yoshino to headquarters._"

"Well," Tsubasa said, seating himself by the intercom beside Donna, "seeing as I'm the only _actual_ employee of Hypnos here... This is Tsubasa, what's the sitch?"

There was a moment of silence as Donna and possibly Yoshino tried to figure out what on earth he meant by 'sitch', before Yoshino answered. "_We've secured four digieggs for the League, just bringing them back now._"

"Sweet as," replied Tsubasa. "I assume Masaru's making the damage report?"

"_Not too bad, actually,_" Yoshino returned lightly – a nice change of tone for her, "_only one of the Bombmon went off, the other one digivolved before the fuse went out._"

"And I had my money on both of them," the technician sighed, before that strange smile returned to his face. "Can you get Tohma on the line for me?"

"_Sure._"

"_Tohma to headquarters._" the blonde said into his communication headset. "_It's been a while, Kagura._"

"Surnames?" Tsubasa pouted (Donna thought she should have been grateful Tohma couldn't see it). "Tohma, I would have thought we were past that by now."

For a moment, Tohma didn't answer, and nor did he say anything to Masaru or Yoshino. "_Kagura, what do you want?_"

"Is that any way to treat an old friend?" Tsubasa went on. What was going on here? "The boss says we're to work together on sorting out a new system so we don't get hacked again. I told him I was looking forward to it."

"_I'm sure you did,_" the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad field agent replied in a completely deadpan tone of voice. "_I assume he means us to start on it as soon as we get back?_"

"Of course," smiled Tsubasa. Suddenly, his timbre changed from smooth and a little bit teasing to... hopeful? For once, Donna's fairly extensive vocabulary of adjectives failed her. "Do you want a cup of tea or anything?"

Another moment of silence, this time somehow managing to sound slightly stunned. "_That would be appreciated._"

"Earl Grey with five sugars and a teaspoon of milk, right?"

"_Four, I'm trying to cut back._" Tohma replied, before adding, "_Thank you._"

"Don't mention it," Tsubasa answered. "Over and out."

"Do I even want to know?" Donna asked, deliberately keeping her eyes on the computer monitor.

"No, not really," the technician replied cheerfully, as he wandered out of the control room.

-

"Kosaburo," Kim said, clicking through her bookmarks to find one newscast in particular, "look at this."

"_Wild digimon all over Zentrum have been suddenly halting in their destruction, caught by dark rings and finding their way to some unknown location..._"

"Oh yeah," said Kosaburo, coming to her side, "I remember this, this is that first newscast about the Digimon Kaiser, isn't it?"

"That's right," she replied, watching the video intently.

"So what are we watching it for?" Kosaburo demanded.

The video cut to footage of the Kaiser himself, and Kim jabbed a finger at the screen, careful not to actually touch it. "That's Ken. I mean, Ichijouji."

"And you couldn't have told me that I was looking for the Digimon Kaiser _before_ now?" gaped Kosaburo, utterly incredulous.

"I only thought of it today," Kim retorted. "Because I remembered watching this and bugging Donna about how he looked familiar and how there was something in the way he talks, but I only just thought about _why_ that was today."

"Well, thanks anyway," her new employee smiled, sincere to start out with then quickly flashing sardonic, "now I just have to find the most well-kept secret in Zentrum."

"Are you looking for the Kaiser?" said Donna, suddenly walking into the office.

"Donna!" Kim squealed, then promptly pretended she'd never said anything of the sort.

Her older sister laughed slightly, then turned back to Kosaburo. "I think I might have a lead on him. I'll e-mail you later, I'm just here to grab money for lunch; I kind of ran out on the train and while Megumi does a _fantastic_ coffee the Hypnos staff kitchen really isn't equipped for actual food."

Kim grabbed her wallet and passed her a couple of bills without really looking at what they were. "Maybe they _don't_ eat."

"That would certainly explain why the girls are so thin," Donna said thoughtfully. "Right, I'll catch you all later, don't blow up the place."

"Why on earth would we do that?" Kosaburo objected.

"Oh, trust me, it happened in Wahia this morning," Donna sighed, before waving and disappearing out of the office again.

-

Tsubasa was rather surprised that Tohma had come straight up into Hypnos rather than making a stop by the Digital Accidents Tactic Squad locker room first. Still, he wasn't complaining as he handed the blonde the tea he'd left on top of the generator to keep warm.

Tohma took a sip of the tea, then sighed contentedly. "Perfect."

High praise, coming from him. "Don't you usually shower right after a mission...?"

"Like you'd know," Tohma said wryly, "Mr. I've Been Working Here for Two Weeks."

"Two and a half," Tsubasa demurred. "You always had wet hair when I used to meet you straight after work."

"Someone's observant," the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad field agent observed. "But yeah, I'm going to, after the tea."

Tsubasa waited patiently for him to elaborate on that reasoning.

"I'm trying to avoid someone," Tohma felt obliged to add, turning away and blushing.

Well, there was only one other 'someone' who'd be in the male locker rooms at around the same time as Tohma. Carefully, Tsubasa kept the frown off his face and changed the subject. "So, I was thinking we could do it in Delphi..."

-

"You aren't just rebounding off Hikari, are you?" Miyako was sure to check.

"Honestly? I don't know," Daisuke admitted, rather bravely for a man facing Miyako and her own muffins which frankly were not nearly as successful as Hikari's (Poromon called them Inoue fighting muffins). He ducked, anticipating her hand trying to connect with the back of her head, but she never even made a swipe for him. "But you're a good kisser!"

Miyako considered slapping him while he wasn't expecting it, but eventually settled for just palming her face.

* * *

Delphi is indeed a rubbish pun off Oracle, and I think it's probably obvious I'm not a big coffee person. 


	13. The Million Dollar Question

This chapter and the last two are all set in the same day. And watch me steal Takato's dialogue from the dub movie.

* * *

Shuichon sighed. "At least they're all okay now, we got the rings off and everything. It could have been _very_ messy." 

"I'm still surprised that spiral worked on _Izumi_," marveled Ryo, "I would have thought they'd be programmed to just deal with digimon."

Junpei folded his hands beneath his chin. "I suppose we become physical embodiments of data when we Spirit Evolve."

"Never mind the Spirit Evolution," Yamato put in, "I didn't like how everyone suddenly dedigivolved once we could see the lake."

"That was _definitely_ weird," Mari agreed.

"It was just the adult levels, wasn't it?" Taichi thought out loud. "Greymon, Garurumon, Kyuubimon, and Peckmon."

"Me too, almost," Junpei added, "it felt like something was trying to sap my power, take my Spirit. That's Spirit with a capital S, by the way, before someone gets all metaphorical on me."

"I don't think it's about the level of the digimon," Ryo replied contemplatively.

Ruki blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Rose is naturally at the ultimate level, she didn't have to digivolve just now to get there. She digivolved to ultimate level quite some time ago and just stayed there." Ryo pointed out. "Cyberdramon is pretty much his natural level, though Monodramon would probably object to that. Lopmon uses a slightly different kind of digivolution to reach Antiramon, so maybe only one-stage digivolution to a form the digimon doesn't habitually stay in is blocked."

"But _how_?" Mari demanded.

Taichi sighed. "And there's the million dollar question."

"Wine and beer!" called out Yamato, making Mari roll her eyes and join Juri behind the bar.

Monodramon stuck his head into the saloon, cursing himself as he did so because Agumon was taking the opportunity to steal his share of the food. "So was _he_ the only one to notice the massive sundial that wasn't there before?"

"Who are you talking about, Monodramon?" asked Junpei.

"It's a really long story," Ryo sighed.

"Seriously, though," Monodramon went on, "there's no one out there who would be crazy enough to make a twenty-five meter sundial."

Taichi regarded the child level digimon thoughtfully. "So you think _that's_ what dedigivolved everyone?"

"_He_ does," Ryo's partner corrected him. "I guess I'm kind of inclined to agree."

"Is your digimon schizophrenic, Ryo?" Junpei inquired, completely serious. "Or should I say 'are'..."

"Something like that," the eldest man replied, palming his face. "Monodramon, Agumon's making off with your fried chicken."

"Come back here!" Monodramon yelled, running back out of the saloon.

Mari returned to the table with Juri, dumping a tray loaded with glasses on the table.

Ruki turned to Jenrya, who had been silent throughout the whole discussion. "What are _you_ doing here, anyway? You didn't even come."

"Professional interest," the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad field agent replied blandly. "Apart from the bit about attacking you guys, all this 'dark ring' business has the Digimon Kaiser written all over it, although he never used spirals at home. Not when I left, anyway."

He still had his mouth open to say something else, but Ryo interrupted him anyway, informing himself that _this_ was only 'professional interest' too. "You mean you've run into stuff like this before?"

"Yeah," Jenrya replied, "for the last few weeks I was in Zentrum, all the wild digimon turning up would suddenly stop wrecking the city and just quietly slink off somewhere. We could never get a field team out fast enough, but observers said dark rings came out of nowhere and slipped onto the digimon, calming them down. And that part about your digimon dedigivolving past a certain point... All of our field agents have been noticing that our digimon can't digivolve in Seiryu any more."

"Seiryu?" asked Taichi, having grown up in Eastend.

"Northernmost ward of Zentrum," Junpei replied, "skyscrapers mostly, though there's a couple of historical buildings."

"Zephyr Tower and Gale Tower, yeah," Ruki added. "They don't get a lot of tourists, or at least they didn't five years ago."

"So one of those... 'sundials', as Monodramon put it, wouldn't seem completely out of place there," Ryo mused, "or you could hide one in a tower and no one would notice."

All of a sudden, Takato burst into the saloon, panting heavily. "Well, it's about the egg."

"Huh?" asked Mimi, coming back into the saloon proper from the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about.

"The egg has already hatched!" Takato insisted.

The owner and now cook of Voler slowly looked at the egg she was still holding in her right hand.

"Argh, not _that_ egg!" Takato shrieked. "The digitama!"

"Why do I have the strange feeling I've had this conversation before?" asked Taichi.

Ryo decided for the sake of his own, already dubious sanity to ignore both Taichi _and_ Mimi, focusing instead on Takato. "So where's your digimon, then?"

"Let's just back up here, cowboy...s," Ruki interrupted, not having quite the same presence of mind. "Since when does the goggle head have a digivice?"

"This morning, apparently," Ryo shrugged. "So, Takato?"

Takato visibly deflated. "I don't know."

"What do you _mean_ you don't know," demanded Yamato, "when I got my digivice my partner was sitting right beside it!"

Holding up his D-Arc, Takato shrugged. "There's a bunch of circles spinning around and an arrow pointing at something..."

"The logical thing to do would be to follow it," Jenrya suggested.

"Since when does the goggle head do the _smart_ thing?" Ruki rolled her eyes.

"Hey!" Takato objected, offended, before storming off to find his digimon.

"Ruki," Ryo sighed, "did you have to...? I'm going after him."

"Ooh, drama," grinned Taichi, following Ryo as he stalked out of the saloon.

Yamato heaved a sigh, and went after them. "Yup, Taichi's going to cause even _more_ trouble, I can just feel it..."

-

As a bright column of light flashed into the sky somewhere about a mile out of town, Takato shaded his eyes before remembering he had goggles and putting them on. "It's got to be there!"

Similarly, Taichi slid his goggles on as he caught up with Ryo. "Hey, how come _you're_ not blinded? That thing's pretty bright."

"I'm special," Ryo replied, running after Takato.

"I would have said 'special needs'," put in Yamato, a dozen or so meters behind them.

"Thanks, Yamato, your input is _highly_ valued," Ryo said dryly. "I'm starting to think we should have brought our horses."

Taichi stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled, and immediately his horse, Zeromaru, trotted to his side. "Did someone call for a ride? If that 'someone's' name is Yamato."

"It's nice to see you appreciate me," remarked Ryo. "Man, I wish I had a Lighdramon right now."

Overtaking Ryo, Taichi stuck his tongue out at him as Yamato sighed and declined the offer of a ride, opting to catch up with Ryo instead. "I'd call Gabumon, but you know how digimon get."

"Hungry?" the brunette supplied. "Oh, great, Takato's digimon means we'll have three more mouths to feed."

Yamato blinked. "What, you think he's getting a Deltamon?"

"I was referring to how digimon's stomachs are bottomless pits," Ryo spelled it out.

Embarrassed, the blonde gave a slight cough. "My bad."

Ahead of them, the circles on Takato's D-Arc had settled down, with not one but _four_ arrows pointing in the general direction of where the light had come up. "Yeah, I know, I know!"

As Takato approached the area, he noticed the ground for a circle with about a ten meter radius was covered in the same light, with a pulsating dark spot in the middle. He got halfway into the circle before the circle flashed again and something black flared up from its center, throwing up a digital field. Ryo ran a little faster, Yamato hot on his heels, and Taichi dismounted a reluctant Zeromaru to get into the field.

When the smoke inside the field cleared, Takato could make out the silhouette of... surely that wasn't the digimon he'd _made up_?

"Guilmon!" he yelled, running towards it.

"What's a Guilmon?" Yamato asked Ryo, holding up his D-Arc.

Taichi, doing the same, shook his head. "I got nothin'."

"Oh my _god_," Ryo murmured, not bothering with his digivice, "it's the digimon he made up when we were out on the trail!"

"He _made up_ a digimon?" Yamato demanded.

"Don't tell me he slashed those stupid drawings through someone's D-Arc," Ryo groaned.

As the three men got closer to Takato and what was presumably Guilmon, they found him snuggling up to Guilmon happily. (The digimon himself looked slightly put out.)

"It's a little..._big_, isn't it?" Taichi asked.

"He's a child level," Takato defended his digimon.

"Back in my day," Yamato pointed out, crossing his arms, "we met our digimon at the baby ii level."

"Yeah, Yamato, and that was when the Ancients walked the earth," Ryo replied dryly, referencing the old Westside legend about the ten Ancient Warriors. "Me and Ke—" He stopped suddenly, rethinking his statement. "Me and a friend met our digimon at the child level. Hell, later on I had to start with a digitama. It's a _really_ long story," he added quickly, before either of them could ask him about it.

"I have a digimon!" Takato squealed rather girlishly, completely oblivious.

-

Today had been a just plain lousy day.

If it hadn't been bad enough that Hypnos had gotten hacked again, apparently the self-declared Digimon Kaiser had been using their systems too, which meant that today they actually had to do something on the active duty shift.

If it hadn't been bad enough that they'd had to do something, apparently the wild digimon of the city of _all_ levels were suddenly choosing today to come in their masses, which meant that the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad field teams had had to pull more and more intense shifts all day.

If it hadn't been bad enough that they'd had to stop several digimon of different levels, apparently Hikaru had woken up on the wrong side of bed today, which meant that he and Sigma had spent half their missions arguing, to the point where Masuken eventually just gave up on the two of them and had Gin Ryuumon do the jobs for them.

If it hadn't been bad enough that he and Gin Ryuumon had done most of the work today, apparently the side of his apartment building had been blown up by a couple of Missimon and a baby Bombmon that hadn't managed to evolve, which along with the fact that Jen was _still_ out in the west, meant that Masuken had nowhere to sleep tonight.

Usually after a mission, if he was still feeling worked up he'd drag Jen home with him to clear his head, but he hadn't heard from Jen since he'd left and he was, frankly, too intimidated by his father (not to mention he was never entirely sure what Jiangyu thought of their arrangement, or even if he actually knew about it) to rock on up into Hypnos and ask if _he_ knew when his son was coming back. In the absence of Jen (which wasn't often, only when he was feeling particularly tired or depressed or something), he had a tendency to meditate, but Masuken was _far_ beyond that today, and made one of his rare visits to the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad and Hypnos fitness facilities. After changing out of his uniform and into the seldom used training gear he kept in his locker, he chose a sport almost arbitrarily and walked into the room for boxing.

Only to find that he wasn't the only one who'd had that idea.

"Masuken," Masaru said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Clearing my head," Masuken replied, "you?" Mentally, he could have slapped himself on the forehead for his last, instinctive retort. Of _course_ Daimon Masaru, self-declared number one street fighter in the city (actually he'd declared himself number one in all of Server, but Masuken preferred to be realistic about his claims) would be here.

"Boxing," the Alpha team leader stated the obvious.

They stared at each other in awkward silence for a moment, before Masaru blurted out, "Would you care to join me?"

"I'm _really_ rusty," Masuken warned him, not particularly keen on having his ass handed to him on a silver platter.

"I'll go easy on you," Masaru offered.

He hesitated before stepping into the ring, dropping his towel and drink bottle in the opposite corner to Masaru's equipment. "Go easy on me like you'd go easy on Relena Norstein."

The frown that flashed onto Masaru's face at the name 'Norstein' did not go unnoticed for Masuken, even though he wiped the frown off his own face almost immediately. "Why would I box with Relena Norstein, she's in a wheelchair."

"Exactly."

By unspoken agreement, the Digital Accidents Tactics Squad field agents began to circle each other, neither of them throwing a punch just yet.

"Tohma's avoiding me," Masaru complained eventually, "and now Yamaki and Hypnos have him working on that stupid rewrite."

"At least we won't have hackers again," Masuken said absently, then noted how Masaru darkened at his rationalization and thought better of it. Ducking a right hook, he changed the subject. "Who's going to be on your team in the meantime?"

"We were almost going to have that Saiba Neo guy," replied Masaru, "only then Captain Satsuma pointed out that then we'd have a Geo Greymon and a Greymon on the same team and apart from being really confusing except for the size difference, it'd be a recipe for destruction."

Masuken blinked suddenly, remembering something triggered by the word 'destruction'. "You were on active duty for the Missimon mission in Wahia today, weren't you?"

"Yeah, why?" blinked Masaru.

Masuken punched him in the face while he was suitably distracted by confusion. "You blew up the side of my apartment building, _that's_ why."

"Sorry, sorry!" Masaru yelped, dancing over to the other side of the ring. "Not my fault! You know how Bombmon are! Wait, you live in _Wahia_?"

"The rent's cheap," replied Masuken, still somewhat annoyed.

"I _know_ Digital Accidents field agents have _more_ than decent salaries, you can afford better than that," Masaru objected.

"So who's on your team instead of Neo?" Masuken changed the subject back.

"Okay, whatever," Masaru retorted, apparently refusing to let the jumps from subject to subject get to him. "We were going to get Doumoto Kouta and Dorumon, but then Yoshi was like, 'two goggle heads on the same field team, that's a really bad idea'. I don't get it, do you?_No one_ on our team wears goggles."

He _really_ didn't get it, did he? Being a goggle head was half the goggles, sure, but it was also half attitude, and Masaru had that in spades. Masuken snickered.

Frowning, Masaru tried to cuff him in the nose, but only got as far as his cheek. "Anyway, for lack of anyone else we've ended up with one of the higher ups, Chief Julia."

"I trained under her," Masuken said vaguely.

"Exactly my point," Masaru replied, "I mean, I love Chaos Dukemon and all, but isn't Chief Julia getting a bit _old_ for active duty?"

"Captain Satsuma's in his forties," Masuken pointed out.

Masaru rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but he and Kudamon don't exactly go out and about every day."

"Oh," said Masuken, disappointed, "there goes my next example of middle-aged people who work in the Guard."

"Who?"

"Lee Jiangyu," he supplied. At Masaru's blank look, Masuken felt it would be best to clarify. "One of the researchers in Hypnos. He turned fifty or something earlier this year."

Masaru suddenly looked rather enlightened. He didn't see Masaru every day, but even when he did he didn't often see _this_ expression on him. It was somewhat worrying. "Lee... Any relation to Jenrya?"

Masuken frowned. "Yeah, he's his dad."

"Thought they looked alike," Masaru beamed. Punching Masuken in the shoulder, he seemed to remember something else. "When's he getting back? I heard you were having problems with Sigma."

"No, it's just Hikaru who has problems with Sigma, problems he cares to voice, at least," Masuken sighed. "I don't know when Jen will be back."

"Where is he, anyway? It's not injury leave, is it? Worst way to go."

Masuken shook his head, though just quietly he actually agreed with Masaru's assessment of injury leave (from experience, even), then got in another blow. "Westside. His kid sister ran away two years ago, and he hired a private investigator – that Donna Eis woman, actually – to find her, and apparently the kid's in Abilene, so Jen took off there and now he's trying to make her come home."

"Oh," said Masaru, "that's kind of stupid. He should just let her stay out there and do what she likes. I mean, if she's lasted this long..."

"Whatever gets him home sooner," the Omega team field agent replied, making a concerted effort to tell himself that he didn't sound like a sulking child, "I don't really care any more."

Masaru stopped suddenly. Masuken used this opportunity to try and hit him in the eye, but the street fighter seemingly took back his earlier promise to go easy on him like he'd go easy on Tohma's little sister and caught his fist. "How long have you two been involved?"

[_It's that obvious, even to someone who doesn't work with us?_ Masuken wondered. "A year last August fifth."

"I thought you looked mopey at the work function this year," Masaru mused.

"Thanks for your observation," he replied dryly. "What about you and Tohma?"

"We're not—!" Masaru yelled, swinging a left hook at him. Not particularly keen on getting a black eye, Masuken ducked the blow. "Sorry. I mean it, though. We're not."

"But you wish you were?" Masuken suggested.

The Alpha team leader blinked. "It's that obvious, even to someone who doesn't work with us?"

It was probably his tiredness talking, but Masuken was sorely tempted to laugh. That would have been embarrassing, so he mentally applauded his triumphant attempt to keep the amusement from turning up on his face. "Everyone in the _Guard_ knows," he informed Masaru instead, making him blush and turn away. Okay, maybe he was exaggerating just a little bit, but the look on his face was _completely_ worth it. "Seriously, the August fifth party, that was a real missed opportunity right there."

Grabbing a towel, Masaru wiped his face (Masuken was of the opinion that it was actually more to hide his blush). "Hey, unlike _some_ people I know, _I_ don't need to get someone drunk to start a relationship with them."

Masuken moved to his corner of the ring, wordlessly picked up his drink bottle, and threw it hard at Masaru's head.

"_Ouch!_" Masaru screeched, glaring at him. "Look, I'm _sorry_."

The blonde slumped into his corner, staring at his towel rather than looking Masaru in the eye. "It's not even really a proper relationship like the one you and Tohma don't have."

"Hey..." Masaru warned him.

He went on, ignoring the interruption. "We just sleep together after work from time to time. In his own words, 'we're like Yamaki and Reika, except we don't live together'."

"Ouch," Masaru offered in sympathy. "That's harsh."

"I actually asked him to move in with me," Masuken added, without looking up, "well, actually I was more thinking I'd move in with _him_, he has a much nicer apartment than me, but you get the picture, and anyway, he said no right away, didn't even stop to think about it."

Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder. Startled, Masuken glanced up to see Masaru crouching in front of him, towel around his shoulders. "As a man," Masaru started, "I shouldn't do this, but..."

Masaru enveloped him in a bear hug. Stunned, it took Masuken a moment to remember his manners and hug him back. The brunette looked distinctly uncomfortable when he pulled away. "Look, do you have a place to sleep tonight?"

Masuken shook his head. "Jen's got a key card to my building but unfortunately I don't have the same privileges at his place."

Standing, Masaru offered him a hand up. "Let's go, then."

He declined, electing instead to get up on his own. "What?"

The Omega field team leader rolled his eyes. "You're a slow one, aren't you? I thought you were meant to be smart. Come on, you can sleep at my place until your building gets fixed up."

Surprised once more, Masuken could only stare at Masaru as he followed him back to the locker room.

"It's the least I can do after I helped wreck your building," offered Masaru. "I live in Cora, it's not far from here, and, hell, it's better than Wahia."

"Some people would say _Abilene_ is better than Wahia," pointed out Masuken, trying his best to regain his wits to some extent. "But, Masaru, um... thank you."

Masaru flashed a smile at him as he disappeared into a shower. "Last one out of here is a rotten digitama!"

-

The thing was, living with other creatures like him was really rather confusing.

"Made this for you. It's on me," Shaochung said, putting something Ikuto thought was probably food on the tree-ground in front of him, along with two of those strangely smooth sticks. "Eat up."

Ikuto stared at her blankly. After a moment, she mimed holding something in her hand, scooping something up, and putting it in her mouth. He nodded, and picked up some of the... they looked like very flat rattlesnakes, but weren't. They were slimy and wet to the touch. Maybe they were flattened worms.

"If you're going to live around humans, you're going to have to eat like us," she informed him. With a sigh, she lifted up the sticks and placed them in his right hand, folding his fingers over it. Was he supposed to eat the _sticks_? Ikuto put the ends of them into his mouth and tried to bite them. Yuck.

"I'll be right back," the girl said, disappearing into the shelter for a moment. When she returned and sat next to him, she had her own pair of sticks in her hand. "Like this." Holding one stick still, Shaochung used the other stick to pin some of the wormy things to the still one. "Just move the chopstick that's on top, between your pointer finger and your thumb."

Still faintly puzzled, Ikuto copied her. To his own surprise, he managed to pick up some of the worms as well. "_I did it!_"

"Well done!" Shaochung squealed. "Now, put them in your mouth." She lifted the sticks and placed the worm things in her mouth, moving the top stick to let go of them, then ate. "Yummy."

He did the same as her, right down to that odd word Shaochung had said after she had swallowed. "Yum... my?"

Happily, she smiled at him, then laughed. It was a good sound, a pleased sound that Ikuto liked, so he laughed with her.

-

"Cute, are they not?" Anna said to Jenrya, the two of them sitting at a table a few meters down from Ikuto and Shuichon on the deck of the saloon.

"You're talking about my sister and the kid who was practically raised by wolves," Jenrya felt the need to remind her, pushing his tsukimi udon around his plate.

"Do not play with your food," the blonde woman pointed out. "No, they are still cute. Look at how he barely understands her but does what she says anyway. And she is doing well teaching him our ways."

Inspiration suddenly hit him like a Locomon, and Jenrya looked between his sister and Anna alternately, blinking. Eventually, he asked her, "You're the reason she cuts her hair short like that now, aren't you?"

"She looks up to me," murmured Anna, blushing slightly, adjusting her goggles, and looking at her kitsune soba instead of at Jenrya. "But really, short hair_is_ more practical, especially out here."

Smiling, Jenrya shook his head. "Back home, Shuichon always had her hair almost a third of the way down her back, no matter what the season."

"Her hair was to her shoulders when first we met her," Anna shrugged. Then she folded her hands beneath her chin, giving him a frank and curious look. "Would you mind terribly my asking why she left? She does not like talking about it, and here in the west that is okay, but I've always wondered."

Wincing, Jenrya looked over Anna's shoulder and watched Shuichon eating chao fen with Ikuto. "She... she doesn't like the way we do things in Zentrum."

"What kind of things?" Anna prompted him.

Jenrya was silent for a long time, then finally made the most inelegant change of subject he'd ever been brazen enough to attempt. "Anna, do you play the digimon trading card game?"

The blonde woman was silent for a moment, before starting to laugh at him, hard. Disturbed, his sister looked up at him and Anna, then shrugged and went back to talking to (or perhaps the word should have been 'at') Ikuto happily.

* * *

When I started planning this, I honestly wasn't meaning to write a digiTomato. I'd actually intended to have Tohma dating Chika as another point of contention between Tohma and Masaru. But I've been reading Splash's doujinshi (splashgottomato on deviantART) lately and it just crept up on me. As did the MasuMasa friendship. I wasn't expecting that. But I kinda like it. Do you?  



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